Bernd Münstermann GmbH & Co. KG

Together with our customers from the foundry industry Münstermann has developed a new cooler concept, in which the required air supply is considerably reduced.

Much less cooling air
The casting shells have to be cooled down to 30-50 °C due for the following step in the production process. The new cooler consists of 10 cooling zones, which are divided up into three individual coolers of similar size, in which the moulds are streamed with cooling air by integrated air distributor devices. The transmission of the cooling air takes places at two stages. The distribution of the cooling air and also the two-tier design are dependent on the local structural conditions and are a good example of what we understand by customer-orientated design.

With a special design version of the air ducts with the integrated airflow distributors the air is screwed as in two parallel corkscrews from Zone 10 to Zone 1. The result is a considerable saving of the air needed.

Automation and transportation: discharge of sand from the cooler
It is necessary to provide sand discharging devices, as sand falls from the moulds as well as from the airflow in the cooler. Münstermann has made provision for a vibration channel immediately under each cooler. The transportation through the cooler and the loading and unloading is also a part of the overall cooling concept.

Please contact us!
We believe we have developed a very interesting cooling concept. Details we would like to pass on during a personal meeting.

Münstermann has made use of all its experience in the transfer car sector in the production of a handling system for metal coils.

A new charging machine for the transport of the charging wagons to load and unload the annealing oven and for the loading and unloading of the bull block-side spaces. With the charging machine, which is in principle a mechanical gathering and removal device, charging wagons loaded with coils are collected from their temporary storage positions or their storage spaces in the warehouse and via a track system are transported to the respective ovens. After the annealing process the charging wagons are moved on again to the bull block-side temporary storage spaces or returned to their allotted storage spaces in the warehouse. The charging machine is able to shunt the individual charging wagons to their allotted positions in the warehouse.

The loading of the oven is carried out fully automatically and requires no assistance from personnel for the transport and for the loading and unloading of the oven. The concept of the handling system is designed in such a way so that further annealing ovens to increase the loading capacity can be integrated at a later stage.

Some further technical details of the transfer car:

• The travelling distance of the transfer car is 27 metres.
• All loading, unloading, oven locations as well as shunting and storage spaces can be reached.
• In the first expansion stage 17 stops are planned. Further stops can be added quite simply.
• The maximum duration of the cycle time of loading and unloading the oven is 10 minutes.

After a fire damage, Darcast from Birmingham gave us the order to replace the destroyed filter system. The plant is the central dedusting of the foundry with a volume flow of 100.000 m³/h. 

Challenges: Brexit and assembly
A very special challenge was the delivery time. Due to the political situation around the Brexit, the filter system had to have arrived before the first exit date in England. The assembly was complicated due to the cramped situation in the factory.

Positive effects for the customer
The replacement of the system also had positive effects. The purge gas pressure or purge gas quantity is now regulated via the filter differential pressure. Advantages are an energy saving and longer service life of the filter media compared to the old system.

Turn key delivery
Münstermann not only supplied the pure filter system, but a complete solution consisting of:

• Engineering of the complete system
• Purge air filter (MFS 661/720) with steel construction and stages, fan and chimney, control, spark extinguishing and CO2filter extinguishing
• Production and delivery of pipelines
• Disassembly, assembly, installation and commissioning

Münstermann has decades of know-how in heat treatment in the steel and aluminum sectors. Examples of this are systems for drying metal strips, blow-off stations, annealing furnaces for aluminum strips and heat treatment plants for solution annealing and hot aging of castings. A current project is a large floating dryer for the production of electrical sheet.

Air flotating dryers and ovens for up to 600 °C
Special applications require special drying methods. Thus, the combination of relatively lengthy drying processes and two-sided coatings of sheet material may make it impossible to guide and support the material by means of rollers, straps, or the like (eg, avoiding scratching). In such applications, dryers or ovens are used in which the material is guided "floating" through the process without contact, so-called air flotating dryers.

Construction of the current dryer
The individual zones of the dryer each have 2 fans, which supply laterally supplied nozzle boxes with heated air. This ensures a homogeneous air outlet over the entire outlet width and thus a bilateral and uniform heating of the strip material. The integrated control technology makes it possible to set the optimum belt running height and stability for different belt thicknesses and belt widths. The belt slack is continuously monitored and readjusted automatically. A specially developed safety concept ensures that the dryer is operated in accordance with EN 1539, area 1.

Many side maintenance flaps
Important for the customer is the accessibility of the dryer inside via maintenance flaps because of

• the accessibility to the dryer nozzles from both dryer sides with doors open for cleaning or repair or replacement,
• the easy control of the tape run in case of scratches and search for their cause and
• direct access to the tape feeder chains in case of malfunctions

The maintenance flaps also make it easy to clean the dryer interior from both sides of the dryer in the event of dirt and caking.

Narrow schedule and spatial conditions
The tight time frame and the spatial conditions in the customer's production presented the employees with additional challenges when installing the dryer. Moreover, the necessary process and safety technology was very demanding. It is essential to mention the partnership with our customer in this context, so that the contract could be successfully carried out to the satisfaction of all those involved.

For the dedusting of various vacuum melting furnaces Münstermann has supplied a turnkey filtering system.

The site of installation is Germany. The volume of air to be extracted in each case amounts to 8000 m3/h with a residual dust content of less than 1 mg/Bm3. The type of dust involves different metal oxides. The unit is controlled using a Siemens SPS.

Some specifications are very challenging for our developers. This is especially true of a current project. The project involves the development, design and manufacture of calcining ovens up to over 600 °C for the production of ceramic honeycomb bodies, as used in the production of catalytic converters.

Cycles and guaranteed tightness
The ovens are part of a production expansion. Two requirements on the plants make the project a very special one. On the one hand, the temperature is above 600 °C. On the other hand, the chambers must be absolutely gas-tight because of the atmosphere inside the ovens. However, the application is only really complicated by the maximum number of permitted cycles (heating to maximum temperature and cooling to ambient temperature), according to which the chambers must still be guaranteed gas tight.

Housing and doors
In addition to many small special solutions, the main focus was on the housing and the sealing of the doors. It can be imagined that with thousands of cycles at such high temperatures and with gas tightness, very special requirements apply to the structure of the housing and the welds. Static calculations and simulations have resulted in a housing shape which allows only minimal distortions. The doors were equipped with a gas barrier seal, which is also cooled by individual water coolers.

This brief description can only indicate the complexity of the project. Contact us if you have similar applications.

A current project shows how interfaces can be saved with the combination of thermal processing technology, material handling, automation technology and flexibility in project handling.

The project is primarily a tempering oven including automatic loading and unloading of piston rods in a chrome plating plant. The tempering oven is part of the chrome plating plant, and the piston rods are kept in the oven for a defined time to temperature and then cooled in the oven. The thermal process is correspondingly relatively easy to implement.

Material handling for the oven
To load the oven, the piston rods are removed by a robot with gripper from a chain conveyor and placed on the conveyor of the oven. After the end of the heat treatment, the piston rods are removed from the oven conveyor via a robot and stored in a container provided. Robotic handling is protected against unauthorized access via security cells. The conveyor for transport through the oven has been redeveloped by us and consists of chains with a special sawtooth profile.

Provision of robots
A special feature of the project was that the customer wanted to provide the robots, and we could only simulate the programming before commissioning. The complete solution from Münstermann saved many interfaces, and there was a project manager at our company as contact person for all trades.

A current project offers a good opportunity to present the interplay of thermal process engineering, material handling and process automation at Münstermann in more detail.

Many different trades, one contact, fewer interfaces for the customer
With the various areas of competence mentioned, we are able to minimize the interfaces for our clients in projects. On the other hand, major factory acceptance tests or FAT can be carried out at Münstermann, as the developers of the automation systems and the design engineers for process engineering and the handling system are available for questions directly on site.

Automated circulation with loading and unloading
The dryer including the dryer circulation was part of a larger order with a total of 5 ovens and 10 dryers for the production of technical ceramics or for the drying and calcination of a metal coating on these ceramic components.

The product to be dried is loaded on product carriers, so-called trays, via robots positioned on the front sides. For this reason, the necessary positioning accuracy of the product carriers on the dryer circuit belt is ± 1mm in all dimensions. The loaded trays are conveyed through the dryer, the trays are unloaded at the outlet and finally conveyed outside the dryer for reloading.

Height-adjustable inlet locks and sound-absorbing sprockets allow noise emissions of only approx. 75 dB (A). The cycle time or the duration until a product carrier changes position is only 1.8 seconds.

The robots themselves are available in the later production on site, but can also be supplied by Münstermann including programming.

FAT at Münstermann: A project of its own within the project
As a condition for the acceptance of the systems, Münstermann carried out a FAT (Factory Acceptance Test) for one dryer and one oven in succession. Due to the size and complexity of the overall project, the plants had to be tested according to customer specifications under real operating conditions for a week. This means nothing less than that Münstermann has carried out a complete comissioning of a dryer including handling system and an oven that had to be heated to over 500 °C in our own production halls.

The electrical power demand for the plants was covered by two large generators, and gas supply via liquefied natural gas was ensured. So that the burners could be operated on the plants with the gas, the liquid gas was converted over a special evaporator in gaseous state. Below are some pictures.

Parallel to the FAT, training and instruction in the operation of the new plants took place. Specialists of the customer from 10 nations were present for the dryer FAT, for example.

In this project it involves a preheating oven for the continuous heating of metal strips. The oven is designed for temperatures of up to 300°C and enables a higher operational capacity compared to the stationary solution as it can be deployed within the original production line. It is possible, however, that for differing reasons, the oven may have to be removed from the production line.

Should a production line stop arise, the customer must be in a position, because of the high temperatures, either to cool down the oven quickly or, and here the Münstermann solution comes into play, to take it out of the production line so that the metal strip no longer has to be warmed up again. Our oven is therefore assembled on a shifting device over which the oven can be removed from the line. As the strip runs through the oven a flap arrangement has been integrated into the sidewall of the machine. When opened the oven can be removed quickly from the production line.

A further project in the refractory industry sector for the company EKW Feuerfest has been completed by Münstermann. This concerns a dryer for a special refractory material.

Design of the dryer
The drying area, approx. 30 m2in relation to the total area, is large. A special feature is the kiln car for loading the unit. With the kiln car 25 tonnes of material can be quickly and simply loaded into the dryer.

Shortened and optimised process
Until now the material was dried at a temperature of up to 400 °C. The new Münstermann dryer can reach temperatures of up to 650 °C, which means a shortened drying process.

In comparison to the previous drying process the drying of the material has been optimised. The distribution of air was homogenised and with this the energy efficiency has been improved. In addition the transmission of heat losses resulting from a tightly welded housing and a sophisticated sealing system for the kiln cars has been reduced.

In order to save further energy a heat recovery unit has been installed in the exhaust air pipe, which makes a portion of the expended energy reusable for the process.

A challenging project has been implemented for RHI AG. This is a setting and calibration system for refractory bricks. It is challenging, as the degree of automation is very high.

Short description of the unit
A kiln car loaded with bricks is moved into position and made firm. After that different shapes and sizes of bricks are placed onto a chain conveyor belt by a 6-axis robot, which can be fitted with different types of grippers. Finally the bricks are positioned for measuring and calibration, the product type is designated and the bricks are measured. At the next position the product is labelled. In the last steps of the process the products are palletised and made ready for despatch.

The functions in detail

• Unloading and positioning of the refractory bricks from the kiln car onto the linear conveyor
• Calibration (height measurement), marking (grade of classification, designation etc.) and labelling of the bricks
• Palletising the bricks according to grade of classification on wooden pallets

Approximately 60 different shapes and sizes of bricks can be handled with the system. For this reason the content of control technology is very high. An example of this is the self-programmed pattern setting generator. The operator can, with this, adjust the setting pattern to the different brick sizes at the flick of a switch. The robots ensure optimal stacking of the bricks on the conveyors and pallets.

In a project in Germany sintered filter elements are used for the separation of the finest dusts and fumes from the exhaust air of a special ceramics production.

With the sintered filter elements very high separation efficiency can be achieved. A good regeneration of the elements with economical compressed air consumption contributes to a very long service life as well as the fact that it is occasionally possible to wash off the filter elements.

Since the entire filter system was designed explosion-proof and pressure shock resistant and because of the indoor installation, further special explosion protection measures.The filter has been designed according to the customer's request so that two production lines can be dedusted. The filter system was realized in the first quarter of 2018.

At the same time, Münstermann supplies thermoprocessing units for further production processes for this customer, so that synergies could be exploited here.

A German carmaker relies on energy-efficient solutions from Münstermann in its coremoulding shop in one of its foundries..

Modernization and centralization
The aim of the project was to replace several smaller dedusting systems with a large central dedusting solutions. One of the reasons was the high cost of spare parts and the inadequate availability of cartridge filters. The new filter system from Münstermann regenerates the filter elements material-friendly with only max. 0.05 bar purging air and therefore does not require compressed air. The operation with purging air is possible via an energy-efficient raw gas flow within the filter system according to the so-called "down-flow principle (DFP)", which also maximizes the service life of the filter material and ensures minimum emissions.

Turn Key project
From the beginning, the customer attached great importance to a wear-resistant design. A complete system consisting of engineering, production, delivery, installation and commissioning was delivered..

Included in the delivery were the crude gas pipes, a NFS 760-574-S purge air filter, the fan house including free-standing chimney system, a spark extinguishing system, the pneumatic conveyor system for the dust and the overall control including visualization.

Some performance data

• Filter surface 861 m²
• Clean gas dust content < 5 mg / m³
• Fan power: 200 kW
• Dust type: quartz sands