36th Plenary Meeting in Columbus (Ohio), USA

September 1-5, 2003

The 36th Plenary Meeting of the International Cold Forging Group (ICFG) was held for the first time in the United States (Columbus, Ohio) from September 1st to 5th, hosted by Prof. Taylan Altan from the Engineering Research Center for Net Shape Manufacturing at the Ohio State University.
This year the paper session of the ICFG Plenary Meeting was combined with the Conference of the North American Cold Forging Group (NACFG) with presentations from industry and university. 49 participants from the ICFG and 62 from the NACFG of countries from the whole globe proved the good acceptance of the invitation. Among the ICFG attendees, there were 21 invited guests and also 21 came from industry. The ICFG Plenary Meeting was chaired by Dr. Jens Grønbæk (STRECON A/S, Denmark) and supported by Prof. Karl Kuzman (University of Ljubljana, Slovenia) and Dipl.-Ing. Alexander Putz who runs the permanent secretary´s office at the LFT in Erlangen (Germany).

Election of new chairman – Prof. Karl Kuzman

After four years as chairman Dr. Grønbæk presented his successor Prof. Kuzman, who has been the technical secretary of the ICFG up to now. Prof. Kuzman was elected by the ICFG delegates in unison and he pointed out his great motivation about his new duty. He and Dr. Grønbæk, who will be the new vice-chairman, were honored by all attendees with great applause.
In this context, Dr. Groenbaek presented the new structure of the ICFG Advisory Board including the new chairman Prof. Kuzman, himself as vice-chairman, the treasurer Prof. Manfred Geiger from the University of Erlangen (Germany), three to five additional members and the secretary. As new additional members of the Advisory Board Dr. Grønbæk presented Dr. Matthias Hänsel from ThyssenKrupp Presta (Liechtenstein) and Prof. A. Erman Tekkaya from the Middle East Technical University in Ankara (Turkey).

Memberships

The ICFG delegates welcomed Prof. Rajiv Shivpuri (USA) as new full ICFG member. New corresponding members are: Dr. Miha Nastran (Slovenia), Dr. Diane J. Mynors (UK) and Mr. Lars Hansson (Sweden). Furthermore, new emeritus members are Mr. Bob Swope (USA) and Prof. Crafoord (Sweden). Thus, the present status of membership results in 22 member countries with 42 full members, 20 corresponding members, 13 emeritus members and 5 honorary members.
Over the last years, the ICFG, and especially the Advisory Board of the ICFG, has tried to attract more members from industry in order to raise the relative percentage of industrial members. Therefore, the ICFG established the “ICFG Company Membership”. As first company member the “Hirschvogel Automotive Group” with Dr. Hans-Willi Raedt as “Principal Company Member” could be presented. Information about this new form of membership is available on the ICFG website.

Subgroup activities and publications

As successor of Prof. Tekkaya, Dr. Mynors took over the chairmanship of the subgroup “Process Simulation”. The outcome of the successful 3rd subgroup workshop in Stockholm will be published in a new booklet at the end of 2003. The coming workshop “Process Simulation” will be held in Shanghai (China) from may 24th to 27th 2004, hosted by Prof. Ruan.
Dr. Hänsel, chairman of the ICFG Subgroup “Tool Life and Tool Quality in Cold Forging”, presented the subgroup activities within the last year. The second part of their current document will be published at the end of 2003.
Dr. Standring gave an overview about the current activities and the continuation in future of the ICFG subgroup “Cold and Hot Forging of Light Weight Materials” on behalf of the subgroup chairman Prof. Steinhoff. In the last year three selected ICFG papers were published in WIRE.

ICFG International Paper Prize 2003 and new Exchange Prize

Among several applications the ICFG International Paper Prize 2003 was awarded to Dr. Peter Marx from the Technical University of Darmstadt (Germany) for his paper „Mechanical Surface Preparation of Slugs in Cold Forging”. Dr. Marx presented his paper at the plenary session of the ICFG / NACFG conference and received the prize by the chairman Dr. Grønbæk. The prize paper will be published in WIRE 6/2003. Dr. Grønbæk asked all attendees to propose good candidates for the ICFG International Paper Prize next year. Deadline for application will be on May 1st, 2004.
In order to support the understanding of young researchers of the importance of cold and warm forging production as it is carried out by world leading companies the ICFG will establish the ICFG – Young Researchers International Exchange Prize to give young researchers an understanding of social and cultural differences and challenges in overseas countries. It is planned to give out this prize for the first time in 2005.

Industrial Visits

After the conference the ICFG delegates visited the Fraser Plant and the Royal Oaks Plant of Metaldyne in Detroit (Michigan). Interesting presentations and a broad insight in the manufacturing of cold, warm and hot forged products were also given at the visit to American Axle & Manufaturing (AAM) in Buffalo (New York).

Next Plenary Meeting

The coming Plenary Meeting in 2004 will be held in Istanbul (Turkey) and will be organized by Prof. Tekkaya. He presented the preliminary program for the Plenary Meeting that will take place from September 12th to 15th, 2004. More detailed information will be published here on the ICFG website.

Alexander Putz