Doosan Enerbility — based in Gyeongnam, South Korea — has placed an order with
www.sms-group.com SMS group GmbH for two high-speed open-die forging presses for the ‘largest greenfield casting and forging plant in Saudi Arabia’. The presses will be installed in Tuwaiq Casting & Forging’s new complex to be built near Jubail in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia (the company is a joint venture between Doosan, Saudi Arabian Industrial Investments Co (Dussur), and Saudi Aramco Development Co).
The two open-die forging presses are of the push-down design. The four-column press has a maximum forging force of 40MN and a maximum upsetting force of 45MN and can process billets weighing up to 55 tonnes. The smaller two-column forging press operates with a maximum press force of 20/22.5MN. 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 become operational 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.
Furthermore, to ensure reproducible forging results, Doosan can pre-calculate ‘pass schedules’ using the ForgeBase software developed by SMS, and thereby increase 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; and in addition to fully automatic operation, switching to semi-automatic or manual press mode is possible at any time.
The two presses are also equipped with an online measuring system that captures the workpiece geometry and temperature during the process, allowing the operator to check the actual and target geometry parameters, which is particularly important when forging complex parts such as stepped shafts.