Applications

FATA provides a variety of systems to help your foundry maximize its casting potential

Cylinder Heads                                                   

One of the classic products manufactured with FATA Aluminum casting machinery. From single benches to fully automated casting cells FATA Aluminum holds the knowledge to offer always the best possible solution according to the customer’s needs. Gravity casting and lost foam technologies are both available, Pre-finishing equipment such as core break, degating and decoring machines complete the production process.

Engine Blocks    

Same as for cylinder heads. requires bigger machines and additional technology expertise. As an example, for both in-line or V-type engine blocks, FATA Aluminum provides automatic iron liners, pre-heating and loading devices. Machinery is built with even stronger installations to assure perfect handling of castings with bigger dimensions and higher weights throughout the complete production line.

Pistons  

The first manual piston casting machines were built by FATA Aluminum back in the 1950’s. From that time to now a long way has been made and today almost every piston OEM manufacturer considers FATA Aluminum as a reference in the market. From small gasoline pistons to large diesel pistons, with or without AI-fin rings, salt cores, top core shaping or other requirements, FATA Aluminum is able to provide the right solution with the suitable automation level.

Automotive Components

Automotive components outside of cylinder heads, engine blocks and pistons include castings such as intake manifolds, overheads, compressor housings, control arms, knuckles, engine brackets and other safety components. These productions usually require dedicated casting machines and FATA Aluminum over all these years has been working in close cooperation with its customers to convert client’s needs into development opportunities. Today we can count on specific machinery for the production of many components using neches that may tilt up to 180 degrees.

Sand Regeneration

Starting from its first ever sand regeneration plant manufactured in 1982, up to now more than 60 installations have been provided worldwide to regenerate sands coming from different molding operations. With the coming of the new inorganic bonded sands our commitment to find new solutions to assure high quality, sustainable, sand regeneration and  further contribute to the preservation or the environment is renewed. This new challenge has been taken seriously and specific systems have already been developed.

Demo Facility / Quality Testing

FATA Aluminum counts on a 0.5 tons/hour demo sand regeneration system installed in its facility for state of the art sand testing. This recent investment allows the company to process customers sand both with mechanical or thermal treatments, even combined together for green sand regeneration. Once treated, sand is taken by our laboratory that performs all necessary tests prior to returning it back to the customer together with the laboratory results. Customers have the opportunity to reintroduce the sand into their normal production process to validate autonomously the efficiency of the FATA Aluminum treatment.

Mechanical Reclamation

Due to the fact that bentonite can’t burn, mechanical treatment is needed to reduce dead clay from the sand grain surface. Such treatment allows reintroduction of the sand directly into the mixer, reducing the amount of coal and bentonite to be used. Modular mechanical attrition machines with built-in pneumatic scrubbers are available, engineered to optimize the efficiency and the quality of the final reclaimed sand.

Green Sand Regeneration

FATA Aluminum has developed a dedicated process that removes completely coal and clay from the surface grain. This treatment allows customers to use green sand scraps for the manufacturing of new cores to be used in the foundry. The process consists in a sub sequential mechanical attrition treatment followed by a thermal treatment and a final mechanical step. All the coal is burned up and the clay removed by attrition obtaining 100% pure silica grain at the end of the reclamation. The resulting product is comparable to new sand and can be used to manufacture cores.

Core Sand Regeneration

FATA Aluminum thermal regeneration plants allow customers who use resin bonded core sand to reduce the new sand needs. With temperatures ranging from 550 degrees C to 700 degrees C, FATA ‘s furnaces have the ability to burn away all the resin deposit from the grain, obtaining sand with equal or ever superior quality if compared to new sand, ready to be used in core shops for core molding.

Inorganic Sand Regeneration

Inorganic core sand binders imply considerable advantages such as absence of smoke and odor in the foundry, a drastic reduction of emissions and improvement of energetic efficiency. One of the disadvantages is a higher difficulty in regenerating these types of sands due to some intrinsic technical reasons such as humidity, hardness and reaction of the binder with the sand grain. During the last two years FATA Aluminum R & D engineers have been working hard to find out the optimal recipe to process this sand. Finally, we have come out with a newer line of sand regeneration systems specifically dedicated to such applications. Inorganic resin bonded sands will progressively substitute traditional organic resin bonded sands in the mass production foundries, and FATA Aluminum is already manufacturing what customers need to satisfy their new requirements.