The U.K.’s Sheffield Forgemasters is being acquired by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to support a substantial recapitalization of the company’s defense-critical plant and equipment over the next 10 years. The investment will secure Sheffield Forgemasters’ role as a critical supplier to the next generation of U.K. defense programs while continuing its independent commercial activities, serving markets such as civil nuclear, oil and gas, power generation, renewables and steel processing.

In the hot and warm forging of steel, there is a clear trend to replace graphite-based die lubricants with synthetic lubricants. This is driven by the need for cleaner work environments, easier handling and to avoid graphite-induced galvanic corrosion of equipment.

This is a complete list of all the feature articles that appeared in FORGE, by month, in 2020. All articles are hyperlinked for your convenience.

Pulse plasma offers significantly more precision in nitriding through the control of the mixture of gases, the controllability of glow-discharge intervals, the design of the pulsed signal and the use of a highly insulated hot-wall nitride furnace. Together with innovations in the design of the furnaces to streamline batch management in nitriding operations, forgers can benefit from dies with superior surface hardness, wear resistance, heat resistance and fatigue strength.

If you’re at all like me, you wonder which articles get the most attention on our website. Every year we publish around 25 feature articles, and at the end of the year we gather statistics to see which ones get the most page views. So, without further ado, here are the five most-viewed articles on www.forgemag.com based on page views. This ranking applies only to articles published in 2020.

A line of sensors has been designed for protecting stamping and forming press dies.

The Forging Industry Association (FIA) announced that Forge Fair 2021, North America’s largest forging industry trade show, will be rescheduled to October 26-28, 2021. It was originally scheduled for May 18-20, 2021. The general logistics, schedule and location of Forge Fair 2021 will remain the same. The three-day trade show will take place at the TCF Center in Detroit, Michigan. Detroit Marriott Renaissance Center is the host hotel and will provide discounted room rates to Forge Fair attendees.

It is a well-known fact that too many recordable safety incidents will result in the good people from OSHA showing up to hang around and ask a lot of questions. Nobody wants to get hurt on the job. Everyone at the facility has some other place to be once their shift is over, and many employees have family waiting for them. With that being said, why would people continue to operate poorly maintained manufacturing equipment and material-handling machinery? 

A rail axle is a round steel rod whose cross section varies along its length to conform to the individual purpose of the parts and stresses that occurs in it. The types of unfinished axles that may be produced, depending on the production method, include solid axles and hollow axles.

According to a local report, the Lawrence County Planning Commission accepted a land-development plan for an addition to Ellwood Specialty Steel’s production facility in New Castle, Pa. The plan calls for a 10,800-square-foot addition and a 7,560-square-foot lean-to structure, both at the back of the existing building. The purpose of the expansion is to increase capacity for a product the company distributes, sales of which have been growing, according to a company spokesperson. Ellwood Specialty Steel is a fully integrated producer of tool steels for forging dies, die-cast dies and other tooling applications. The company utilizes primary melting, refining and degassing equipment, along with ESR and VAR processes, to manufacture premium steel ingots.