38th Plenary Meeting in Chester, UK
September 14-16, 2005
The 38th Plenary Meeting of the International Cold Forging Group (ICFG) was held from September 14 to 16, 2005 in Chester (UK), hosted by Dr. Peter Standring from the Department of Manufacturing Engineering at the University of Nottingham. This year the Plenary Meeting was organized in combination with the International Cold Forging Congress (ICFC) that took place at the same venue the days before. More than 40 participants (20 from industry and 20 from academia) registered for the Plenary Meeting and came to Chester which is near Manchester and Liverpool. The meeting was chaired by Prof. Karl Kuzman (University of Ljubljana, Slovenia), the chairman of the ICFG.
Memberships
This year Prof. Kondo (Japan) was awarded with the Honorary Membership to appreciate his great research work meeting the objectives of the ICFG. Prof. Nakamura and Prof. Kuzman honored him with a laudation and an awards ceremony. He is now one of six Honorary Members the ICFG has.
The ICFG delegates welcomed Prof. Zhen Zhao from Shanghai as new corresponding member. Within the ICFG, there were changes in the membership status of Prof. Ishikawa (Japan), Dr. Nath (US) as well as Prof. Yang (Korea) who are now new full members and Prof. Wanheim (Denmark) whose membership was changed to emeritus status. After the decease of Dr. Pugh who passed away in May 2005 and who was honored by all attendees at the Plenary Meeting in a minute´s silence, the ICFG now consists of 90 personal members from 22 countries over the whole world.
In the ICFG Advisory Board Prof. Kuzman was confirmed as chairman to stay for a further 2 year period. The new vice-chairman is Prof. Tekkaya (Turkey) who is the successor of Dr. Groenbaek (Denmark). In addition, Prof. Groche from Darmstadt (Germany) was promoted to become a new member of the Advisory Board.
Subgroup activities and publications
One of the main topics for discussion at the Plenary Meeting was the future subgroup work. Up to now the ICFG had three subgroups. The subgroup “Tool Life & Tool Quality“ chaired by Dr. Hinsel (Hirschvogel) set now its focus on the tool surface. Furthermore, the subgroup presented the results from a questionnaire about the comparison between steel and tungsten carbide in Europe and Japan. The results will be published in the 3rd document of the subgroup (No. 17/06) in spring 2006.
The subgroup „Process Simulation“ chaired by Dr. Mynors (Brunel University) will have a further workshop within the next ICFG Plenary Meeting in 2006. For the promotion of the subgroup activities success stories from applications of simulation in industry will be collected and published on the ICFG website.
The subgroup „Cold and Hot Forging of Light Weight Materials“ was renamed to “Cold Forming of Light Weight Alloys“. For future activities a questionnaire will be prepared and will be sent out to members, universities and companies to get information about future demands in this area.
Two further new subgroups will be established and will have their first official subgroup meeting at the coming Plenary Meeting in 2006: „Properties of Cold Forged Products” under the temprary head of Prof. Tekkaya as well as „Incremental Bulk Forming” which will be chaired by Prof. Groche.
ICFG International Paper Prize 2005
The ICFG International Prize 2005 was awarded to Dipl.-Ing. Alexander Putz for his paper “Ultrasonic Inspection of Prestressed Cold Forging Tools – Development of a Theoretical Model and Relevance for Industry”. Mr. Putz presented his paper to the delegates at the Plenary Meeting and received the prize by the chairman Prof. Kuzman. The prize paper will also be published in one of the coming WIRE issues. Prof. Kuzman asked all attendees to propose good candidates for the ICFG International Prize next year. Deadline for application will be on May 1st, 2006.
Next Plenary Meeting
The coming Plenary Meeting 2006 will be held in Changwon, Korea and will be organized by the ICFG member Prof. Yang. He presented the preliminary program of the coming Plenary Meeting that will take place from August 27 to 30, 2006. More detailed information will be published here on the ICFG website. Presentations of invited speakers downloadable here: China (Prof. Zhao), Japan (Prof. Nakamura), Germany (Dr. Raedt), UK (Dr. Standring).