Three large yoke castings weighing 30 tons have been supplied.
One of South Africa’s largest foundries – Amsted Foundry Solutions SA – has recently manufactured and delivered the third casting for an order of four similar castings for a local company that supplies product to the power and steam generation industries, amongst others. Referred to as a yoke casting that is used as the feed head for a ball mill the casting eventually has a nett weight of 30 tons.
“45 tons of medium carbon steel are cast for this large component that the foundry pre-machines and heat treats before delivery to the customer. The casting then goes through final machining and further testing before being transported to site for assembly,” said Amsted Foundry Solutions SA’s Foundry and Melting Manager Armandt Jacobs.
Amsted Foundry Solutions SA – has recently manufactured and delivered the third casting for an order of four similar castings for a local company that supplies product to the power and steam generation industries, amongst others. Referred to as a yoke casting that is used as the feed head for a ball mill the casting eventually has a nett weight of 30 tons
A mould being prepared
“The order for the four castings is a revival of a contract that we were last contracted to do in 2013. This is quite significant for this section of the foundry as we seek opportunities to replace orders that have been reduced in certain areas of the rail transport industry,” continued Jacobs.
“The cast products division of Scaw South Africa was purchased by Amsted Rail Company Inc in March 2018 and operated under the name Cast Products SA before changing its name to Amsted Foundry Solutions SA in July 2019.”
Amsted is a US-based company, ultimately a wholly-owned subsidiary of Amsted Industries Incorporated. Amsted Industries is a diversified global manufacturer of industrial components serving primarily the railroad, vehicular, construction and building markets. Cast Products SA was a company incorporated by the Industrial Development Corporation of South Africa (IDC), to which the cast products division of Scaw South Africa (Pty) Ltd (Scaw) was transferred, prior to the implementation of the transaction.
Precision rail castings
Amsted Rail is one of the world’s leading designers and manufacturer of undercarriage and end-of-car railcar components. Amsted Rail manufactures and markets heavy-haul equipment worldwide. The company offers “Adapter Plus” steering pad systems, axles, bearings, brakes, centre plates, coil springs, couplers, connectors, knuckles, drawbars, cushioning units, draft sills and draft gears, friction shoes, hatch covers, plastic pellet gates, “Preload Plus Constant Contact Side Bearing”, truck assemblies, wear prevention products, and wheels. It also provides IONX, an asset monitoring solution that tracks fleet from anywhere in the world. The company was incorporated in 1977 and is based in Chicago, Illinois, USA.
Casting done and now for shakeout
The third bay will account for the lighter castings such as the crusher balls that the foundry manufactures for Eskom and other customers around the world
Amsted Foundry Solutions SA is a manufacturer and supplier of single piece thin walled locomotive and passenger car bogie frames, freight car components and high integrity cast steel railway wheels to the local and international railway markets. Amsted Rail in the USA was a client of the local company, prior to the purchase of the South African business. Amsted Rail’s involvement in South Africa began around 2003 and the company continues to make investments to expand their capabilities in the region.
Amsted Foundry Solutions SA comprises three separate foundry sites, all of them based in the Gauteng province and is one of the largest foundry groups in the Southern Hemisphere. There is the original foundry operation in Germiston, the Eclipse East Foundry that specialises in low alloy steel and high chromium iron mill liners, manganese crushing wear parts for gyratory crushers and jaw crushers and low alloy steel earthmoving under carriage wear parts and the Boksburg Foundry that manufactures a complete range of manganese mill liners, screens and grids used in the gold mining industry.
The Germiston foundry is one of the largest foundries in the South Africa and produces castings with a finished weight of up to 30 tons. The complex where the foundry is housed is universally known as Union Junction, a 49-hectare site that has been operational since 1942. History shows that the company was established in 1924 when it began operating from a location in Eloff Street Extension in Johannesburg in 1924 before moving to the Germiston site. By 1956 it had become a leading supplier of cast steel bogies.
Moulds prepared for the crusher balls
Amsted Foundry Solutions SA also designs and manufactures cone and gyratory crusher wear parts in a range of materials including bowls, mantles, concave segments, torch rings and jaws as well as blowbars/hammers, impact plates and wear plates
The foundry holds the American Association of Railroads’ approval for the manufacture of freight car side frames, bolsters and cast steel wheels. Other products include large gear segments, high-carbon, high-chromium, abrasion resisting coal grinding elements for coal-fired power stations, high-chromium iron mill liners and impact crushing parts, stainless steel coiler drums, and a range of slag ladles for the metal processing industry.
Arc furnace melting units with 20 ton and 12 ton capacity and a 25 ton capacity ladle vacuum degassing unit serve the foundry where steels can be produced with lower sulphur, nitrogen, oxygen and hydrogen contents, particularly necessary for the manufacture of high strength, low-alloy steels.
This extensive foundry network enables Amsted Foundry Solutions SA to streamline production of a wide variety of products, including large girth gear segments, large high chromium iron coal pulverising wear parts, mill liners, slag pots, locomotive frames, bogie castings, couplers and drawgear as well as cast monoblock railway wheels. Products included in the large girth gear segment include high carbon, high chromium and abrasion resisting coal girth gears. Girth gears are cast in either one piece, halves, quarters and occasionally in fifths. Each individual segment may weigh between seven and 25 tons.
Germiston Union Junction Works – Jobbing foundry
The Germiston facility of Amsted Foundry Solutions SA is also known as the Union Junction Works. This facility comprises a number of units. Besides the specialist foundry manufacturing rail freight wheels there are a further two foundries and a machine shop on site.
A 20 ton arc furnace being prepared
Amsted Foundry Solutions SA also has a 12 ton arc furnace at its disposal
The major activities of the second foundry, which is known as the jobbing foundry, are to manufacture single piece thin walled locomotive and passenger car frames and freight car components, high chrome white iron grinding rings, balls, cylpebs and other large castings such as the yokes and spiders that are also used in the power generation industry.
Locomotive bogie frames manufactured of cast steel far exceed that of fabricated frames. Locomotive bogie frames are manufactured for all track gauges with axle loads from 15 000kg to
40 000kg.
Other products manufactured include undercarriage parts for various mining shovels such as crawler shoes/track pads, drive tumblers, idlers, rollers, high chromium iron mill liners and impact crushing parts, stainless steel coiler drums and a large range of slag pots and ladles for the minerals processing industry. Amsted Foundry Solutions SA also designs and manufactures cone and gyratory crusher wear parts in a range of materials including bowls, mantles, concave segments, torch rings and jaws as well as blowbars/hammers, impact plates and wear plates.
The jobbing foundry has three distinct bays. The heavy bay accounts for the manganese castings that weigh 12 ton and up such as the yokes, bowls, mantles, concave segments, torch rings and jaws that are cast in a variety of austenitic manganese steels from standard 11-14% manganese grades to 23% manganese and various molybdenum and chromium bearing grades as well as martensitic alloy steels. Manganese castings account for up to 60% of the heavy bay output
The medium bay foundry accounts for the locomotive bogie frames that the company is well-known for
The jobbing foundry has three distinct bays. The heavy bay accounts for the manganese castings that weigh 12 ton and up such as the yokes, bowls, mantles, concave segments, torch rings and jaws that are cast in a variety of austenitic manganese steels from standard 11-14% manganese grades to 23% manganese and various molybdenum and chromium bearing grades as well as martensitic alloy steels. Manganese castings account for up to 60% of the heavy bay output.
The medium bay foundry accounts for the locomotive bogie frames that the company is well-known for. Cast steel locomotive frames permit optimum metal distribution with smooth structural transitions. Stress concentrations are minimised and a high strength-to-weight ratio unit is produced. The service life and reliability of cast steel far exceeds that of fabricated frames. Cast locomotive bogie frames provides an integral, rugged frame, which supports the locomotive under all service conditions and provides a secure mounting for auxiliary equipment.
The fabricated type bogie has a frame that is constructed of various components (flat bar, plate, angle, channel, section, etc.) and are usually either welded or riveted (or a combination of both) while the cast type has a frame of steel that is cast as a single piece including both side frames, horn cheeks, and the main cross member or bolster. Bogies consist of a number of fixed and moving parts depending upon the construction type.
Apart from the successful chrome-molybdenum steel balls Amsted Foundry Solutions SA now offers both solid and hollow balls in high chrome iron
A locomotive bogie frame being machined. 98% of castings manufactured by Amsted Foundry Solutions SA that require machining are done in-house
Depending on usage a bogie frame can weigh between 4 tons and 8 tons. The company has also produced thousands of sets of steel castings for freight cars for both the local and exports markets. These include side frames and bolsters.
The third bay will account for the lighter castings such as the crusher balls that the foundry manufactures for Eskom and other customers around the world. Large hollow balls needed by the E- type mills have been made typically of alloy steel but more recently high chrome balls are becoming more popular.
Apart from the successful chrome-molybdenum steel balls, Amsted Foundry Solutions SA now offers both solid and hollow balls in high chrome iron. Today the hollow ball production process covers diameters up to 1 150mm. Each size ball is gauged to a typical tolerance of ±2.5mm.
The foundry holds the TPG accreditation for special processes such as castings, welding and NDT (Nondestructive testing) and American Association of Railroads accreditation to manufacture locomotive bogie frames. Other accreditations include ISO9001:2008, ISO14001:2009 and BS OHSAS 18001:2007.
All of the foundries are serviced by in-house machine shops, which include vertical and horizontal boring mills, computer numerical controlled (CNC) machining centers, lathes and planers. Castings of 25 tons and five metres in diameter can be produced to close tolerances. Smaller castings that require CNC batch production runs are also accommodated. The machine shop is also fully equipped to handle up to the largest grinding element castings which are 4 260mm in diameter and weigh 14 metric tons.
Amsted Foundry Solutions SA now offers both solid and hollow balls in high chrome iron. Today the hollow ball production process covers diameters up to 1 150mm. Each size ball is gauged to a typical tolerance of ±2.5mm
“98% of castings manufactured by Amsted Foundry Solutions SA that require machining are done in-house. We cannot accommodate the large yokes that we have just done and these are sent to an independent,” said Jacobs.
“Rail transport is coming back into favour for the transportation of goods over long distances. Through the pandemic orders from the local SOE have not been what we are used to but this could change in the near future as efforts are made in the local industry. This will also be beneficial for our third foundry located in Germiston, which we refer to as our high-volume foundry. In 2016 the company commissioned a new R160 million high-volume moulding line at this foundry, manufactured by Omega Foundry Machinery.”
“However, our international recognition in bogie frame manufacture has seen us secure a very encouraging order from GE Transportation in the USA. We are required to manufacture between two and four of them a week and with a nett weight of 6.6 tons each this has added a bit to our production figures.”
“Well-known trains, including South Africa’s famous luxury Blue Train, are hauled by locomotives that are fitted with Amsted Foundry Solutions SA bogies. Scaw manufactures railway products for both electric and diesel-electric locomotives.”
“With the increase in demand from China for both coal and iron ore Transnet Freight Rail is under pressure to get the commodities to the ports for shipping and therefore need those GE Transportation diesel-electric locomotives working on the rails. This will obviously be very beneficial for our foundries,” concluded Jacobs.
For further details contact Amsted Foundry Solutions SA on TEL: 011 842 9000 or visit www.castproducts.co.za
