Trine labs featured in national foundry video

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.

The video is also available to watch on YouTube.

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.