Sustainability with perspective

Hidden Champion
This is how much Siempelkamp is involved in electromobility

Krefeld, September 20, 2022

The Siempelkamp Giesserei as a pioneer for the automotive industry of tomorrow: In connection with the establishment of electric cars, a completely new development in car body construction is on the horizon - and Siempelkamp Giesserei is leading the way at the beginning of the value chain.

Challenges as an incentive to top performance

Instead of assembling a large number of individual pieces, nowadays a few highly complex light metal die-cast structures replace large parts of the vehicle body. “This saves weight and costs, and the entire process becomes simpler. In addition, using secondary or primary aluminum obtained with renewable energies, die casting can be almost CO₂-neutral. This in turn significantly increases the sustainability balance of the entire new type of vehicle construction,” says Dr. Georg Geier, Managing Director of Siempelkamp Giesserei.

These developments present machine manufacturers with completely new challenges. As a result of the increasing demand, especially from well-known automotive groups such as Volvo or Tesla, our customers in the areas of plastic injection moulding and light metal die casting are developing ever larger machines which meet the new requirements and production processes. Consequently, the aim is to increase efficiency. It is also essential to improve the reproducibility of the higher component quality for the e-mobiles.

The demand from our customers is causing injection moulding and die casting machines to reach previously unknown dimensions. As a result, our customers are launching horizontal presses that achieve clamping forces of up to 7,400 tons for plastic injection moulding machines and even 9,200 tons for die casting machines. The structural components required for each of these high-tech machines, which ensure power transmission within the machines, are also taking on unimagined dimensions.

“Our precise strategy is to focus on the one hand on the innovative companies, and on the other hand on this newly emerging sector of mechanical engineering companies with long-term prospects for the future. This strategy is demonstrably paying off successfully. Through the symbiosis between mechanical engineering and foundry expertise, we jointly develop the geometry-optimized component in combination with the right material. These projects spur our team on to top performance,” says Dirk Howe, Managing Director of Siempelkamp Giesserei.

High-quality structural components as part of the energy transition

Their experience with thick-walled ductile cast iron makes our foundry the perfect partner for the production of such demanding cast components. In the end, after optimization, the plates still achieve unit weights of around 150 ton and wall thicknesses of up to 1.40 m. “However, we reduced the weights by up to 25% from the first drafts to the final design,” says Dirk Howe proudly of the gratifying result of this interactive collaboration.

The challenge in manufacturing these core components is, among other things, to adjust the solidification and cooling times so that all material specifications and load limits are met in continuous load operation. All production steps from pattern planning to casting and fettling are precisely coordinated to produce a defect-free part.

The subsequent delivery of the plates is also a logistical challenge. They are first shipped individually by heavy-duty truck to the port and then often in pairs by barge to our customers.

The production results of these machines and the top quality of Siempelkamp structural components are convincing all along the line, which is why many more sets of plates with press forces from 4,000 tons are already in the order books of Siempelkamp Giesserei.

These structural components close another value-added circle in which Siempelkamp Foundry is significantly involved. Among other things, we also supply the world's largest structural components - for example, end plates, bearing journals, and gear rims - for horizontal mining mills all over the world. These mills produce the enormous demand for raw materials such as copper, nickel, lithium, aluminum and other critical minerals - an important basis of successful energy transformation for the future.

All of this illustrates: Electromobility also gives us a confident and ambitious perspective for the coming years.

Photos

above: shipping a plate for a 9,200 ton press to the port of Krefeld

left: Dirk Howe, Managing Director Siempelkamp, with international customers from the moulding injection press sector

About Siempelkamp Giesserei

Siempelkamp is a globally active group of companies with the business units Mechanical and Plant Engineering, Casting Technology, and Nuclear Engineering. Nearly 3,000 employees worldwide ensure that the Siempelkamp Group is represented among the world leaders with its technologies.