February 2022 Volume 4

EQUIPMENT & TECHNOLOGY

Carolina, to do just that and provide room for significant long-term expansion. The initial $127.3 million investment was to help it create a strong global manufacturing footprint as part of its aluminum strategy. According to Vick Kheny, Director of Sales for Bharat Forge AluminumUSA, “This was Bharat Forge’s first greenfield investment outside Indian borders, as well as its first aluminum investment outside of Germany.” Groundbreaking in North Carolina took Valuable time was lost in the U.S. and overseas as the pandemic reached global proportions. Lasco Umformtechnik GmbH, Germany, was to be the lead supplier and integrator for the new aluminum operation. According to Mike Gill, President of Lasco Engineering Services, LLC, Monroe, Michigan, “Because of COVID restrictions, our parent company in Germany could not fulfill its role on site in North Carolina, so we were asked to step in and oversee the installation and integration of the aluminum line. In the summer of 2020, we started shipping goods into Sanford, and we began equipment installation in September. In early 2021 the line installation was completed, and in March 2021 Bharat Forge Aluminum USA forged the first trial parts.” place in February 2020. And then COVID hit.

Vick Kheny says, “Bharat’s intention was to mirror its BF-AT German operation here in North Carolina. There is a lot of German DNA in this installation and technology. We are a synergistic blend of three cultures, part Indian parent company, German technology, and USA enthusiasm. This is a turnkey, highly automated, state-of-the-art facility.” The production line utilizes the same HCM feedstock process and forging process like BF-AT. It starts with bins of pre-cut aluminum billets that are melted and cast on site. These are robotically placed in a conveyor furnace for preheating, from which the heated billets are cross-wedge- rolled into preforms that are bent and/or flattened as needed. Two Lasco screwpresses do the actual forging, from which the raw parts are sent to a trimming press. After a T6 annealing treatment, the trimmed parts are water-quenched, then artificially aged thermally. After fluorescent inspection and shot blasting, the parts are moved to other parts of the plant for finishing operations as needed. Bharat Forge Aluminum USA has started up a showcase operation in Sanford, North Carolina. It verifies the forging community’s willingness to invest in accommodating the changing needs of its automotive customers in highly automated and sustainable ways.

Two 4,000-ton Lasco ScrewPresses at Bharat Forge Aluminum USA, Sanford, North Carolina, are at the heart of the new aluminum line and produce automotive components approximately every 10 seconds. Courtesy of Bharat Forge AluminumUSA.

and level of difficulty to implement them. A total of 535 weight reduction ideas were proposed for the LCV. These were split into three groups: those that were easily implemented with little or no cost increase; those that might increase cost and required greater implementation efforts; and those “tough nuts” that required more cost and effort. In summary of Phase II, it was found that using alternative materials and modern design concepts, that forged products could save up to 99 kg in weight. Two-thirds of this reduction can be achieved using new design concepts in steel, while an additional 34 kg in weight savings could be achieved using nonferrous metals. InPhase III, the LFI consortiumstudied the lightweightingpotential of a split-axle hybrid vehicle and the transmission components of a heavy truck. Using analytical steps like those in Phases I and II, it was found that 93 kg, or 11 percent of the analyzed component mass in the hybrid vehicle, had lightweighting potential. For the heavy truck, 460 components weighing 909 kg were similarly analyzed for their lightweighting potential. Transmission parts accounted for one-third of this weight and propeller shaft

and rear axle components accounted for the rest. It was found that a total of 124 kg, or 14 percent of the component mass can be lightweighted.

Graphic summary of the Lightweight Forging Initiative’s analysis on saving weight on a passenger SUV (42 kg), a light commercial vehicle (99 kg) and a split-axle hybrid vehicle (93 kg). Courtesy of The Lightweight Forging Initiative.

FIA MAGAZINE | FEBRUARY 2022 15