AZTERLAN performs industrial plant digitalisation developments within the INEVITABLE European project

The Metallurgy Research Centre takes part in the international consortium of 12 organisations from 6 different countries that will perform digitalisation projects of industrial plants with the aim of improving their productive capabilities and their energy efficiency.

To achieve more efficient production processes regarding energy consumption and production quality by minimizing the scrap rates and avoiding defects, are some of the greatest challenges shared by metallic transformation industry. 4.0 technologies offer a great potential to approach these issues fostering more robust processes and facilitating to take decisions in critical moments. The implementation of sensors, the use of artificial intelligence or the creation and deployment of predictive control systems are currently strategic allies that can help to optimize industrial processes.

In this context, the consortium of the INEVITABLE project will develop various digitalisation projects in industrial plants to improve their production and energy efficiency. The companies EIBAR PRECISION CASTING S.L. and SIDENOR ACEROS ESPECIALES S.L., along with AZTERLAN Metallurgy Research Centre can be found among the consortium formed by 12 European organisations. Starting from the key performance indicators related with resource consumption and product quality, a whole digital plant transformation of the industrial partners is to be performed.

Development of an advanced, intelligent and predictive model to be applied to the manufacturing of complex metallic alloys

As explained by Fernando Santos, coordinator of the research line on new materials and processes, the working plan with the company Eibar Precision Casting S.L. will be focused on the investment casting or lost wax moulding technology. This technology is mainly oriented to the production of advanced components for the air and space market. The INEVITABLE project “aims to be a reference project in the sustainable evolution of the productive processes backed on digital technologies”.

The lost wax moulding technology is a complex process composed of various manufacturing phases where many controls are performed to assure the quality of the final product. Nowadays, the implementation of corrective actions to reduce rejection and to guarantee the quality standards still relies on the expert knowledge of specific people and, once incidences have been already generated, the corrective measures that can be applied are quite limited. By means of this demonstrator an intelligent and predictive management model will be developed to be applied on diverse alloys such as aluminium, steel or superalloys.

During the initial first phase a thorough audit will be performed and all the data captured will be centralised and graphically represented. Afterwards, a series of data analysis will be performed on the main variables using specific tools that will allow to identify the ones that affect to the critical KPIs (like rejection or energy consumption). Finally, in a last phase, a platform that will gather the visualization, the centralised consultation, the prediction and the emission of actuation protocols will be integrated within the decision making procedures of each company.

Manufacturing plant of Eibar Precision Casting