Positive participation of IK4-AZTERLAN at the international exhibition GIFA 2019

The Metallurgy Research Centre has presented its latest innovations for the Foundry of the Future at this outstanding international showcase for foundry technologies.

From June 25th to 29th IK4-AZTERLAN has taken part in the international exhibition GIFA 2019 focused on foundry technologies, where the Metallurgy Research Centre has presented its latest technological developments and capabilities oriented to improve the competitiveness of foundry companies.

Under the slogan “Shaping the Foundry of the Future” IK4-AZTERLAN has brought to GIFA 2019 its expertise and knowledge to facilitate the transformation of foundries into the “Foundry of the Future”. As explained by the Technology Centre, “the foundry requires integrated production processes, digitalized and efficient, built with a zero-defect philosophy to approach the increasing demands of the market”.

With that purpose, IK4-AZTERLAN has brought to GIFA 2019 its advanced technological solutions in the fields of metallurgical quality, process and product optimization and the development and implementation of industry 4.0 technologies (metallurgical software, predictive control systems, digitalization and traceability systems).

In the words of Ramón Suárez, R&D director of IK4-AZTERLAN, “our presence at GIFA 2019 has assessed our research lines and our future bets for the foundry. We have received in our stand international companies dedicated to many different sectors and with very diverse production capacities, but all of them have shown great interest for the technological solutions that we have presented them, based on new metallurgical concepts developed by the center after years of research, as well as the application of 4.0 technologies”.

The technological proposal of IK4-AZTERLAN is based on improving the competitiveness of foundry companies. For that purpose “we integrate metallurgical knowledge and process knowledge with 4.0 solutions to support these developments”.

High expertise in casting technologies

The generation of knowledge to later be transferred to the industry is the main mission of the IK4-AZTERLAN Metallurgy Research Centre. As a technology center focused on metallurgy and advanced manufacturing technologies its research lines are oriented to give response to the challenges of metal-mechanical transformation companies and their customer sectors, with a high expertise in casting technologies.

The technological capabilities of IK4-AZTERLAN for foundries are mainly framed within the following areas of collaboration:

• Development of innovative alloys and optimization of mechanical properties from metallic materials.
• Efficiency improvement of casting processes.
• Product optimization.
• Development and implementation of 4.0 solutions for foundries. Process digitalization.
• Eco-innovation oriented towards the reduction of environmental impacts and to the improvement of energy efficiency.
• Strategies for weight reduction and improvement of specific properties (behavior to fatigue, corrosion, surface optimization…)