INPROTEC IRT Srl is one of the partners of the international project SEM-net, aiming to study and to prototype an innovative control system for the series manufacturing of HPDC cells. The project started on the 1st March 2018, and will last 24 months.

The SEM-net consortium has been formed carefully selecting each of the partners to ensure the commercialization of the new innovative product to be developed.

It encompasses the entire value chain (from process equipment suppliers, to manufacturers and the validator. Working together the partners with their complementary backgrounds, knowledge and skills will implement a relatively mature technology in a lighter and competitive new aluminium parts.

Participants:

SME-NET has received the funding from the MANUNET initiative, that supports innovation-driven, close-to-market research and development projects in manufacturing. It aims to encourage cross-border value chains that emerge from advancing technologies.

Cars are in fact responsible for around 12% of total CO2 EU emissions, and to this concern, EU Regulations are pushing the passenger car industry to reduce its greenhouse and toxic emissions by setting mandatory emission reduction targets for new cars. Car producers are therefore compelled to go towards lighter vehicles.

Aluminium is more and more adopted, thanks to its lower density compared to steel and thanks to a lower cost compared to magnesium and carbon fibers. Components are designed to match increasing requirements in terms of safety and impact resistance, while maintaining performance and sinking prices. The resulting product for foundries is the so called “aluminium structural part”, which is currently a challenge for HPDC, due to its technical difficulties.

Partners of the Project are keen to reach this market with SEM-net, a competitive system which allows to continuously monitoring the process increasing the productivity and modifying automatically key parameters during production in order to achieve the best quality of the part both with a smart energy consumption.

SEM-net is an innovative control system for the series manufacturing of HPDC cells. The objective of the project is the implementation of an innovative system based on the interaction between a stereo thermographic device called Die Thermal Control (DTC), thermoregulation units and the spray head in the Vacuum High Pressure Die Casting (VHPDC) technology for the manufacturing and commercialization of new aluminium structural castings. For this purpose during the project the new structural castings, as demonstration products and the VHPDC Dynamically Thermal controlled process (VHPDCDTC) will be validated to manufacture structural castings in a continuous and robust manner.