43rd Plenary Meeting in Darmstadt, Germany
September 12-15, 2010
The 43rd Plenary Meeting of the International Cold Forging Group (ICFG) was held from September 12 to 15, 2010 in Darmstadt (Germany), hosted by Prof. Groche from the Institute for Production Engineering and Forming Machines of the Technical University Darmstadt. The Plenary Meeting was attended by 79 participants from 19 countries where 33 attendees are from academia and 46 are from industry. The meeting was chaired by Prof. A.E. Tekkaya (University of Dortmund, Germany), the chairman of the ICFG.
Memberships
The ICFG delegates welcomed Dr. Neher (Germany), Dr. Ghiotti (Italy) and Mr. Zwez (Germany) as new corresponding member. Prof. Merklein (Germany) became a full member. The membership status of Prof. M. Geiger (Germany) was changed to emeritus. Prof. Altan (USA), Prof. Altintas (Turkey), Mr. Önder (Turkey) and Dr. Maegaard (Denmark) quit the ICFG by their own requests. The ICFG now consists of 91 personal members from 25 countries over the whole world. Within the ICFG Advisory Board Prof. Merklein (Germany) succeeds Prof. M. Geiger (Germany) as new Treasurer. Prof. Kocanda (Poland) becomes an additional member of the AB.
Subgroup activities and publications
The ICFG has three active subgroups. The subgroup “Process simulation” had a joined session together with the subgroup “Tool Life & Tool Quality” dealing with results of a survey about tool life simulation, the prediction and improvement of tool life by using CAE and its methodology. Additionally, an independent subgroup session “Process simulation” was held in the morning presenting the document “Preparation and assessment of FE-simulations of cold forging operations – collection of case studies”. Moreover as new chairmen Dr. Andrea Ghiotti (Italy) and Prof. Yoshinori Yoshida (Japan) were elected who presented current and future activities. The subgroup “Tool Life & Tool Quality” is preparing a document dealing with surface finishing of tools. The subgroup “Cold forging 2050”, which was founded last year in Shanghai, had two sessions in the afternoon. The session was split up in two workgroups, where each member had to point out his opinion about the future of cold forging and the ICFG itself. The results were discussed in the workgroups and presented by each workgroup in a joined session.
ICFG International Prizes – Paper Prize and Exchange Prize
In 2010, the ICFG International Paper Prize 2010 has been awarded to Mr. S. Rudolf (Germany) for his paper “Hollow Lateral Extrusion of Tubular Billets – a Newly Developed Cold Forging Process”. Prof. Tekkaya asked all attendees to propose good candidates for the ICFG International Prize next year. Deadline for application will be on May 1st, 2011. The call for candidates will be online on January 2011.
In 2010, the ICFG International Exchange Prize was awarded for the second time. The prize winners are Dr. Chengliang Hu (China), Mr. Tahsin Basoglu (Turkey) and Mr. Takahiro Ishiguro (Japan). This prize is established 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 and also to give young researchers an understanding of social and cultural differences and challenges in overseas countries. The technical trip of 5 days covered visits to a light metal cold forging company (Alutec), cold-warm-hot forger (Daimler, ThyssenKrupp Presta, Hirschvogel, Schaeffler) as well as academic institutions (PtU Darmstadt, LFT Erlangen) in Germany and Liechtenstein. Additionally, two of the prize winners attended the Plenary Meeting in Darmstadt, Germany, where they have been presented to the attendees during the Plenary Session by Mr. Schrader. The ICFG cordially thanks the companies and institutions for their generous support of the ICFG International Exchange Prize. The next ICFG International Exchange Prize will be in 2012.
Next Plenary Meeting
The coming Plenary Meeting 2011 will be held in Sonderborg, Denmark and will take place from September 11th to 14th. The meeting will be organized by the ICFG member Prof. Bay from the Institute for Product Development of the Technical University of Denmark. The preliminary program was presented by Prof. Bay. More detailed information will be published on the ICFG website in due time.