A new video that will be released nationwide on PBS affiliates features footage from
Trine University’s Metal Casting and Foundry labs, located in the university’s Bock
Center for Innovation.
“Spotlight on the Modern Metalcasting Industry,” sponsored by the American Foundry
Society and the Foundry Educational Foundation, is a five-minute educational video
that provides an illuminating overview of the metalcasting process, underscores the
importance of castings in daily life, emphasizes the contributions of North American
castings to the global supply chain, and highlights rewarding careers within the foundry
sector.
The American Foundry Society estimates the video will be seen by 3 to 4 million viewers
through more than 300 airings on local PBS affiliates throughout the U.S. during the
first 90 days of its release.
Darryl Webber, Ph.D., professor and chair of Trine’s Wade Department of Mechanical,
Aerospace and Mechatronics Engineering, said the Foundry Educational Foundation shot
the footage on Trine’s campus and provided it to Trivue Entertainment, which produced
the final video.
“We have really good labs, so I think it was an easy choice for the editor,” he said.
Trine’s metal castings lab includes all the equipment needed to create metal castings
in sand or permanent molds. The 75-kilowatt induction furnace can melt 100 pounds
of cast iron or steel.
The combustion furnace allows the melting of 40 pounds of non-ferrous metals. There
is also a resistance furnace, design and built by Trine students, with similar capabilities.
Finishing equipment includes an industrial-sized shot blast machine, vertical band
saw, sand blaster, grinders, a CNC plasma cutter, and a laser table with a four-by-four-foot
table that can open to support four-by-eight-foot material.
A gas-fired forge can be used to prepare metals for hot work on the Bluemax 65 power
hammer and/or 16-ton press.
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