Sheffield Forgemasters, the foundry, forging, and engineering group with workshops at Sheffield, England, is producing several critical castings for a new hammer press being built for ATI Ladish Forging, in Cudahy, WI. The order is estimated at $4 million. Forgemasters reported it is its fourth order in a series for ATI Ladish, carrying a total value of nearly $8 million.
ATI Ladish is an Allegheny Technologies Inc. business unit that produces a variety of aerospace forgings.
Michael Holloway, Sheffield Forgemasters’ senior sales manager, said: “I have been working with ATI Ladish for three years on the detail of this contract and through our great partnership, consider them one of our best clients.”
The castings concerned in the new order will be the upper and lower rams for a new counter-blow hammer, weighing 364,000 lb and 340,000 lb, respectively. The product dimensions will be 4.8 m high × 3.3 m wide × 4.0 m deep for the upper ram; 3.5 m high × 3.3 m wide × 3.0 m deep for the lower ram. In the finished press, the rams will deliver 125,000 Mkg of forging pressure.
The sizes of these castings requires them to be finish-machined in a vertical boring machine, which is capable of operating up to five and a half meters high.
Forgemasters will produce the castings in two pours, each one requiring four ladles of molten steel. The larger, upper ram will take 380 metric tons of molten steel; the lower ram will require 360 metric tons. Sheffield Forgemasters reportedly is the only foundry in Europe capable of such large-scale pours, and it is the only machining operation in the U.K. with the capacity to finish the components.
Forgemasters will burnish the main diameter of the upper casting with a specially designed tool. The tool’s roller is applied to the diameter of the piece under pressure to consolidate the journal surface so it can run freely along the bearings.
The castings are due to be shipped to Wisconsin in October.