NZ Manufacturer September 2013
DEVELOPMENTS
The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why. – Mark Twain
In the electric arc furnaces of Deutsche Edelstahlwerke, stainless steel is melted from selected scrap and certain alloy elements.
treatments and still manages to meet the highest corrosion requirements. Formadur 2738 and new development Formadur 320 are steels with low hardness. They make production much more cost effective of simpler plastic moulds without elaborate surface designs or which have fewer demands on service life.
Dynamic Bend Lighting - Precisely Directed
In addition to light-emitting elements, modern Xenon or LED headlamps will also contain several motors that adapt the light cone to the actual circumstances. When the car is started, sensors, for example, measure the height of the beam and adapt its direction, depending on the vehicle load so as not to dazzle oncoming traffic. Even more complex is the control
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The remelting of stainless steels in the electro slag remelting furnace clearly improves the level of purity, the material’s strength and toughness, and ability to be polished.
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of the dynamic bend lighting system. Compared to static bend lighting which illuminates the areas along the side of the road at a fixed angle, dynamic bend lighting systems flexibly adapt the diffusion of the light cone to the vehicle’s environment. To do so, sensors constantly measure speed and steering angle of the vehicle. The latest systems also use data provided by an onboard camera or GPS data to predict driving situations. The optimum degree of illumination derived from this data is transmitted by an electric pulse to the bend lighting system’s motor and the beam is adjusted accordingly. In setting the turn angle, both a rapid response as well as a high degree of accuracy are important. In this case, motor shafts are needed that are precise and translate the incoming pulse in an exact movement. A suitable material is the ETG 25, a special high-grade bright steel which is supplied to various automotive suppliers as the starting material for drive shafts ETG 25 is a material that unites apparent opposites. It is both easy to machine as well as very strong in application - without necessitating further processing steps, such as heat treatment.
The Bottom Line
Headlamps for the automotive industry are becoming more and more complex in design and functionality. Lighting systems today now adapt automatically and flexibly to a wide range of road and weather conditions and process a vast assortment of data. The design of headlamps and rear lights is also increasingly becoming a unique selling point for car makers and new shapes and designs such as light curtains and light-emitting elements are opening up numerous possibilities. As headlamp complexity increases, there is also a rising demand for high-grade special steels.
Do you have a story you want to share? Developments? New markets discovered? How are you finding business in this challenging economy?
Email Doug Green at words@xtra.co.nz and share your story with readers. www.nzmanufacturer.co.nz