MQP is actively involved in a number of projects that focus on the quality of metal in casthouses worldwide. These include optimising the grain refining process using the Opticast system in conjunction with a grain refiner, Optifine, development and evaluation of novel three chamber filtration systems incorporating the addition of grain refiner to one chamber, and casthouse programmes aimed at the audit, characterisation and enhancement of melt quality and cleanliness.
The work on melt quality and cleanliness has been carried out in co-operation with N-Tec Limited, which specialises in molten metal quality management.
N-Tec provides a metal quality benchmarking service known as FootPrinting, which generates profiles of metal quality in terms of dissolved gas and inclusions and compares them with its database of worldwide industrial product profiles collected over the last 15 years.
FootPrints are the statistical average of all the individual data in the N-Tec database and provide a very powerful quality management tool.
MQP and N-Tec have now pooled their resources and expertise to extend and improve the melt quality audit and benchmarking service into industrial casthouses worldwide. Together they are currently introducing a control charting software, called MeltClean®, which can be used to determine a unique metal quality index from data generated on a Prefil Footprinter machine.