Material flow

About: Material flow is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 3050 publications have been published within this topic receiving 36844 citations. The topic is also known as: material stream.

Materials Handling System Design

Abstract: Material handling systems consist of discrete or continuous resources to move entities from one location to another. They are more common in manufacturing systems compared to service systems. Material movement occurs everywhere in a factory or warehouse—before, during, and after processing. This chapter discusses types of equipment, how to select material handling equipment, an operating model for material handling, and warehousing issues. It ends with a case study that implements some of these issues. Material handling work should be minimized without sacrificing productivity or the level of service required of the operation. Material handling operations should be mechanized and/or automated where feasible to improve operational efficiency, increase responsiveness, improve consistency and predictability, decrease operating costs, and eliminate repetitive or potentially unsafe manual labor. Computerized material handling systems should be considered where appropriate for effective integration of material flow and information management. Keywords: material handling equipment; materials handling system

Аnalysis of the state of automation of material flow control in silicon production

Abstract: The problem of material flow control has a key significance in the silicon production since the proportional composition of furnace-charges (specific gravity, taking into account moisture) and current state of the furnace (slagging and etc.) essentially affect the yield and quality of the finished product, and the efficiency of the technological process as a whole. The relevance of the topic lies in the need to modernize and increase the level of transparency of production processes in the silicon industry. In this analytical review, the following tasks have been solved: the suitability of using automated material flow control systems in the silicon production has been proved; the bottlenecks of the process in terms of saving resources have been identified; the functionality of the automated material flows control system has been determined by means of examples of similar production; the method of control of emissions of valuable components has been put forward; the functional structure of the automated control system of the highest production level for the company “Silarus” has been proposed. This article examines the state of automated material control systems in the silicon production. The reasons for the introduction of such systems have been substantiated by the example of ferroalloy production. The general principles of the organization of automated systems of the factory operation of the largest foreign silicon enterprises, and their role in the accounting and management of material flows have been determined. A method for controlling the quality of microsilica capture has been proposed.

Material flow behavior and microstructural evolution during refill friction stir spot welding of alclad 2A12-T4 aluminum alloy

Abstract: In this study, we used the stop-action technique to experimentally investigate the material flow and microstructural evolution of al-clad 2A12-T4 aluminum alloy during refill friction stir spot welding. There are two material flow components, i.e., the inward- or outward-directed spiral flow on the horizontal plane and the upward- or downward-directed flow on the vertical plane. In the plunge stage, the flow of plasticized metal into the cavity is similar to that of a stack, whereby the upper layer is pushed upward by the lower layer. In the refill stage, this is process reversed. As such, there is no obvious vertical plasticized metal flow between adjacent layers. Welding leads to the coarsening of S (Al2CuMg) in the thermo-mechanically affected zone and the diminishing of S in the stir zone. Continuous dynamic recrystallization results in the formation of fine equiaxed grains in the stir zone, but this process becomes difficult in the thermo-mechanically affected zone due to the lower deformation rate and the pinning action of S precipitates on the dislocations and sub-grain boundaries, which leads to a high fraction of low-angle grain boundaries in this zone.