High-speed forging presses to Saudi Arabia’s biggest casting plant
Doosan Enerbility, Gyeongnam, Korea, has placed an order with SMS group for two high-speed open-die forging presses for the biggest greenfield casting and forging plant in Saudi Arabia. The presses will be installed in Tuwaiq Casting & Forging Facility’s new complex to be built near Jubail in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia.
Tuwaiq Casting & Forging is a joint venture between three companies: Doosan, Saudi Arabian Industrial Investments Company (Dussur), and Saudi Aramco Development Company. The two open-die forging presses are of the push-down design. The four-column press has a maximum forging force of 40 MN and a maximum upsetting force of 45 MN and can process billets weighing up to 55 tons. The smaller two-column forging press operates with a maximum press force of 20/22.5 MN. The presses will be used to forge highly stressed parts for pumps and valves for petrochemical plants, various components for shipbuilding, and forgings for wind farms and power stations. They are scheduled to go into operation in the second half of 2024.
To enable fast forging, both open-die forging presses are fitted with auxiliary equipment that includes an ingot car for loading the ingots into the rail-bound manipulator, a table shifting device for faster upsetting, a tool shifting device, and a tool magazine.
For reproducible forging results, Doosan can pre-calculate pass schedules using the ForgeBase® technology software developed by SMS, thus increasing the productivity of the presses. Coupled with a database comprising more than 200 materials, the software calculates the optimum individual forging strategy for any given forging. In addition to fully automatic operation, switching to semi-automatic or manual press mode is possible at any time.
The two forging presses are equipped with an online measuring system that captures the workpiece geometry and temperature during the process. This allows the operator to check the actual and target geometry parameters, which is particularly important when forging more complex parts, for example stepped shafts. In addition, each press features nine cameras that provide the press operator with a 360° view throughout.
The digital package supplied by SMS group will help the plant owner to increase process transparency and plant availability while reducing maintenance costs to a minimum. The package is specially tailored to the customer’s needs and includes the SMS-Metrics (process data acquisition) and Smart Alarm (plant fault monitoring) software tools, which are provided as software-as-a-service (SaaS).
