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Manufacturing Services Department

Head of Deparment: Engr. J. O. Alasoluyi

Manufacturing Services Department is a major hub of the Engineering Materials Development Institute which is further divided into five units namely; Manufacturing Unit, Foundry Unit, Design, Modeling and Simulation Unit, Quality Assurance Unit and Finishing and Assembling Unit.

1. MANUFACTURING UNIT

Manufacturing consists of sequence of operations which transforms raw materials from a given form into the desired form for human use. The sub-units within the Manufacturing unit are:

i. Advanced Manufacturing Centre: This unit has Computer Numeric Control (CNC) machines such as Vertical Machining Centre (VMC), CNC Lathe, and Electric Discharge Machines (EDM), other machines are Surface Grinding Machine and Gear Hobber Machine. They are modern machines that are used for production, incorporating highly automated and sophisticated computerized design and operational systems. They are used to manufacture high quality products at low cost within the shortest delivery time.

ii. Conventional Machine Shop: This unit has machines that are usually operated manually; they are 1.5m Lathe, 1.0m Lathe Conventional Milling Machine, Shaping Machine, Pillar Drilling Machine and Surface Grinding Machine.

iii. Fabrication and Welding: In this unit we have Eccentric Press Machine, Guillotine Shear Machine, Arc Welding Machine, Spot Welding Machine, Angle Grinding Machine, Tungsten Insert Gas (TIG) Welding Machine, Metal Inert Gas (MIG) Welding Machine and Oxy-acetylene Welding equipment. They are mainly used to carry out diverse fabrication and welding processes. The unit is also equipped with a Plasma Cutter; Plasma cutting is a process that cuts through electrically conductive materials by means of an accelerated jet of hot plasma. Typically materials at which a plasma torch include steel, stainless steel, aluminium, brass and copper, although other conductive metals may be cut as needed.

iv. Virtual Manufacturing: This is the unit that allows the engineer to work with object in a virtual space without having to think about objects underlying technical information. This unit allows human capacity for evaluation of our work.

1 
8-Mould Interlocking Brick Making Machine

 

2 
2- Mould Interlocking Brick Making Machine

3 
Yam Pounding Machine

4 
Spherical Tank

5 
  10kW Propeller Hydro Turbine
  

6 

 

 35kW Small Hydropower Turbine

2. FOUNDRY UNIT

The Foundry unit is a Resource Centre for promoting a train-the-trainer’s scheme in Foundry Technology Education and also carries out production of high quality cast products.
The unit is basically divided into two parts which are the Pattern Making Shop and the Foundry Shop.

  • Pattern Making Shop

This is the first step taken before casting can be done.  This section involves the use of 3D-design software such as AutoCAD to produce pattern/casting drawings and consequently developing a replica of the cast product otherwise known as pattern from the specific choice of pattern materials.
The choice of the pattern materials in use at EMDI ranges from wood, wax, metals, POP and ceramics.
Some of the machines in the Pattern Making shop include:

  • Wood Planning/Thicknessing Machine
  • Wood Milling Machine
  • Circular Band Saw Machine
  • Tool Grinding Machine

 

9             10

Planning/Thicknessing Machine           Band saw Machine

12             141

                                Wood Milling               Cross Cutting/Disc Sanding Machine
15 
Tool Grinding Machine

 

  • The Foundry Shop

The shop consists of mould making section, melting section, heat treatment section and finishing.
The foundry shop is equipped with:

  •  Standard 150kg and 250kg Twin Pole Induction Furnaces for production of high quality steel melt,
  • 100kg Rotary Furnace for melting all grades of cast iron and its alloy
  • 300kg and 500kg Recuperative Rotary Furnaces for melting cast iron and its alloy
  • A Lift-Out/Bale-Out Crucible Furnace for non-ferrous metal

a. Mould Making Section
In this section, Sand Moulding Technology is usually employed for mould production. The sand is prepared using the sand mixer.


157 
Sand Mixer

b. Melting Practice
Molten metal of right specification is produced using Oil-Fired Rotary Furnace, Induction Furnace and Bale-Out Furnace.

 

16                               17
         100kg Rotary Furnace                                          300kg Recuperative Rotary Furnace

19                        18
     250kg Twin Induction Furnace                                 Bale-Out Furnace

 

20 
500kg Recuperative Rotary Furnace

c. Heat Treatment Process
In this section, equipment such as Muffle Furnace and Salt Bath Furnace are used to carry out heat treatment operations such as annealing, normalizing, quenching, tempering, austenitizing and austempering. The essence is to modify the microstructure of metals in order to enhance certain mechanical properties (which include strength and ductility) that may be required in the as-cast metal.
The heat treatment section is equipped with:

  • Salt Bath Heat Treatment Furnace for Austempered Ductile Iron (ADI) production
  • Muffle Furnace for heat treatment operation for ferrous and non- ferrous metal
  • High Temperature Heat Treatment Furnace

23 22
  Salt Bath Furnace                              Heat Treatment Muffle Furnace

 

24      26

21 25

d. Finishing Process
This section uses machines such as; Pedestal Grinder, Tumbler, Angle Grinder and Oxy-acetylene gas to carry out operations that involves cutting, grinding and painting with the appropriate colour code in other to give the as-cast or heat treated castings perfect surface finish as required in service application.
 Some of the as-cast products are shown below:

 26
Channel Grating

 

 

27                    28
        Rollers                                                                            Bull Gears

27                                20
    Train Brake Shoe                                      Grinding Plate

 

 

2-                                        30
               Bench Vice                                                              As-Cast Water Pump Impeller

 

 3. DESIGN, MODELING AND SIMULATION UNIT

Design, Modeling and Simulation department is tasked with designing of parts, machines equipment and production plants. The unit adopts a comprehensive process that involves:

  • Design: The process followed here, involves the use of modeling software to show the look and function or workings of a part, equipment, machine or engineering system before it is fabricated in the workshop.
  • Modeling: At this stage, modeling software is being used to build a ‘model’ which contains all the parameters of the physical part and represent the physical part in virtual form and then conditions are applied to determine its workability before it’s taken to the workshop floor for fabrication.
  • Simulation: Modeling software is also used to compare the ideal working condition of the model with the real life situation (after fabrication). In most cases, simulation of machines enables the designer see the interrelationship of parts and workability of each part in relation to each other. If flaws or interference is noticed during the course of simulation, the designer redesigns the parts so as to reduce wastage of materials and resources in the workshop floor.

This unit has top notch engineers and professionals who use state-of-the-art equipment and software to translate ideas into models and products and show case same in an easy to understand concepts to the end users and public.
The unit is equipped with 3D design software such as AutoCAD, Autodesk Inventor, Solid Works, Pro Engineer/PTC Creo, COMSOL Multiphysics, MatLab and Granta Design for the Design, Modeling, Simulation, Engineering Analysis and Materials Selection of Engineering Components.

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The unit has successfully designed and tested various machines related to various fields of engineering such as Structural Engineering, Power Generation and Agricultural Engineering. Some of the machines include:

  • 8- Mould Interlocking Brick Making Machine
  • 2- Mould Mobile Interlocking Brickmaking Machine
  • 35 KW Small Hydro Power Turbine.
  • Impact Brick Moulding Machine

4. QUALITY ASSURANCE UNIT

Finished casting is always subjected to thorough controls and qualitative inspection to ensure the job produced is according to required specifications. As a matter of principle, the Quality Assurance unit is saddled with the following functions:

  • To supervise and manage all Quality Assurance, Quality Control and Safety functions in the Institute,
  • To ensure fabrication and foundry works are done to specification,
  • To have a proactive approach in Quality Control and Assurance related problem Solving,
  • Plan, control, and assure product and process quality in accordance with quality principles, which include planning process, material control, acceptance sampling, and measurement systems, and
  • Preparing quality inspection plan to meet customer’s requirements.
5. ASSEMBLING AND FINISHING UNIT

The Assembly and Finishing unit of EMDI explores a line of manufacturing process in which individual parts of a larger product are put together in a specific order. The surface finish and integrity of the products requirement are complied with according to customers’ request.
It is the duty of the assembly and finishing unit to ensure all manufactured product from the manufacturing services department are well assembled and finished for optimal performance to meet customer’s satisfaction.