Complete furnace and components
When a major foundry in France, a supplier of cast parts to the country’s automotive manufacturers, needed two dosing furnaces relined, a new control system for the furnaces, and an advanced electrical cabinet, and they needed it all during a pandemic when worker health and safety was on everyone’s mind—they turned to Pyrotek. Pyrotek had long been their trusted partner, supplying equipment technology and reliable, high-performing parts, as well as on-site technical expertise.
“This customer has really come to trust our solutions,” says Michael Machado, the Pyrotek Foundry Sales Engineer who has been working directly with the customer. “Our partnership has always been based on a mutual goal of seeing them develop.”
New control cabinet and panel
In the midst of a pandemic, Pyrotek was there when the work had to be done, he says. Pyrotek made many trips to the customer's facility during the process, but always with safety as the top priority.
“The work was not easy, and deadlines were affected by the Covid-19 crisis,” Machado says. “But it ended with a happy customer that was rapidly back to casting parts faster than they expected.”
Considering the scale and circumstances, Pyrotek commissioned and managed several local subcontractors to perform parts of the project. The total project included:
- Safe removal of the furnaces from the customer's facility
- Destruction and removal of the old refractory
- Sandblasting and painting of the furnace's exterior metal casing
- Complete supply of all the furnace spare parts, including dosing tubes, filling cones, filling hoppers, heating elements, thermocouples, thermocouple protection tubes, and more
- Refurbishment of hydraulic elements
- Supply of complete electrical cabinet
- Supply of new dosing furnace control system equipped with a capacitive touchscreen in cooperation with the furnace designer
- Delivery and commissioning of the furnaces in their place of work
Furnace being filled
“My direct partner at the plant has been really happy about the quality of our refractory, and he is confident regarding the lifetime of the furnace,” Machado says. “We have updated 20-year-old technology at all levels.”
Pyrotek and the customer are already looking to partner on more technology updates and projects critical to the foundry’s success.
The upcoming projects include relining a melting furnace, and the addition of a Pyrotek advanced degassing system and hydraulic-tilting transport crucible.
Contact Michael Machado at micmac@pyrotek.com.
Posted in Case Study.