Automotive Supplier
Facility: Tier 1 Automotive Supplier – Drive Train Components Facility in PA.Affected Operations: High Production Machining of Forged Steel
Equipment Used: Trunion type Machine tool For Specialty Drilling
Historical Problems:
An extremely expensive, four stage filter system was supplied with the machine tool. The filtration equipment did not perform well and frequently broke down causing excessive down time, loss of production, poor tool life, rejected parts and elevated maintenance expenditures. Flow rates average between 120 and 150 gpm. Target Points to be met included:
- Eliminate downtime attributed to unreliable filtration
- Eliminate dumping the coolant tank to shovel chips
- Improve or eliminate frequent filter cleaning requirements
- Improve coolant life and clarity
- Eliminate plugged coolant lines
Corrective Action:
Flow Pro designed and supervised installation of a Filtration System comprised of a Magnetic Conveyor / Filter retrofit package that was 80% less in cost than the original system. The Magnetic Conveyor is utilized to remove large and stringy chips prior to pumping coolant to the Magnetic Filter, where the fine particulate contamination is removed.
This design met and exceeded all Target Points specified by the customer.
Space limitations allowed for only one hopper. Flow Pro Engineers designed a unique discharge orientation to address this need, which allowed the Magnetic Filter to discharge directly onto the Magnetic Conveyor allowing a single hopper to be used without compromising operational effectiveness of equipment.
The photo provided shows the consistency of sludge being captured by the Magnetic Filter. This fully illustrates that while Magnetic Conveyors are a highly reliable and efficient means of transporting large chips they will not yield true filtration functions. The primary function of the Magnetic Filter in this design is to capture the fine particulate routinely missed by Magnetic Conveyors.
