November 2024 Volume 6

FIA TECHNICAL UPDATE Season’s Greetings, News, and Opportunities By Dekland Barnum FOUNDATION NEWS

O ver time, the fall season has become my favorite time of the year, and it is certainly a bustling and exciting time for FIA. I wanted to take this opportunity to share what we have been working on, and also existing and upcoming opportunities for both schools and members. In September, right before the official start of the fall season, the 33rd Forging Industry Technical Conference was held in Erie, PA. It was a great opportunity to speak with students, professors, and industry professionals, to hear what they have been doing and discuss what we can work towards. Many of the schools at the conference had recently submitted final reports for FIERF funded projects. Some of the most recent report submissions to FIERF are Wire-arc Addi tive Manufacturing (WAAM) for Forging Dies by Georgia Southern University, Predicting the Occurrence of Central Burst During Open Die Forging of High Strength Steels by École de Technologie Supéri eure, and Numerical Modeling of Tooling Improvements for Forging Processes by Lehigh University. I would encourage you to review these final reports once they become available in our Online Tech nical Library on FIA's Website. While you can read more about the conference on page 46 in this magazine, I wanted to give special thanks to everyone on our team who made this event possible, as well as our Technical Committee volunteers, and our gracious tour hosts at Ajax/CECO/Erie Press. Another reason we look forward to October and the fall season is that the second Friday in October is Forging Day, with the goal of raising awareness and educating the public about our industry. This ties in well with our research grants announcement this same month, and our previously announced Forging Club Grants. Both are a significant opportunity for schools to engage their students in forging research and development, as well as the process of making forg ings. For our industry members, this is an opportunity to connect with local schools and collaborate on forging research and best prac tices for forging. More information about our FIERF Stage Gate Grant and Micro Grant applications and the Forging Club Grants is available on pages 53 and 61 in this magazine. Looking ahead to the spring, Forging Clubs participate in an annual competition where they forge a selected part. This year the competition will take place at Forge Fair in May, and students will be judged on their blacksmithing hammer, with judges from our industry as well as the popular show Forged in Fire. The hammer cannot exceed 3.5 pounds and must be made of 1045 carbon steel. A special thanks to our members, such as Charter Steel, who have committed to donating material for this competition to the schools competing. October was also the same month we had the FIA Fall Meeting & Marketing Seminar. The event was packed with business-focused

talks on trade, economics, and politics. In particular, several talks from our partners focused on the recent independent study on the available capacity of our industry. This has been a topic of debate for many months with FIA receiving numerous questions on behalf of DOD, DOE, and other interested parties calling our assertation that we have the capacity to support the warfighter. FIA will host a free webinar on November 14 discussing the results of this survey, which is also discussed elsewhere in this article. In addition to discussions on capacity, we also had two excellent talks describing the process of requesting and receiving government funding. The talk SMI gave described how budget approval delays can impact the timing of an award. This situation has impacted the timing of awards following our whitepaper call last March, however our DOD partners and related groups continue to move this process forward as quickly as possible. As of right now, I anticipate we will have more to share with the industry in the first months of the new calendar year. In addition, we are optimistic that another call will occur in the spring, provided we hear word that our request was approved before year end. Our existing government funded projects continue to move forward, and I wanted to take this opportunity to highlight one effort in particular. As announced previously, FIA has partnered with the Non-Ferrous Foundry Society (NFFS) as they rebuild their existing database to include casting, forging, and machining suppliers all in one database. The goal of this project is visibility of FIA member capabilities and tooling to military procurement personnel. This will ensure companies are being passively contacted and sent solicitations that are relevant to their business and expedite the speed at which our military components are procured. If any member is interested in volunteering for early access to ICON and testing its capabilities before the database goes live, please contact me directly. The winter solstice will be upon us before we know it, colder days and darker nights, yet warmth of company and brighter stars as well. As temperatures drop and we prepare to gather with family and friends, may you have peace and happiness in these holiday months. Dekland D. H. Barnum, PMP Technical Director Forging Industry Association Phone: 216-781-6260 Email: dekland@forging.org

FIA MAGAZINE | NOVEMBER 2024 58