Welcome to e-Connections, the weekly AFS email newsletter. In this Jan.13, 2009, edition:

Three Metalcasting Facilities Earn Millionaires Safety Award
AFS has announced the winners of the 2008 Millionaires Safety Award. This annual award recognizes facilities that reach million marks of consecutive man-hours worked without incurring an occupational injury or illness that results in days away from work.

The 2008 winners include:

  • John Deere Foundry, Waterloo, Iowa, 6 million man-hours;
  • Intermet Corp./New River Foundry, Radford, Va., 3 million man-hours;
  • ATI Casting Service, Laporte, Ind., 1 million man-hours.

The metalcasting industry as a whole recorded its third consecutive decrease in recordable injury and illness cases in 2007 according to the results of an Occupational Safety and Health Administration study. The Millionaires Safety Awards will be presented at the 2009 Metalcasting Congress President's Luncheon, scheduled for Friday, April 10, at the 113th Metalcasting Congress in Las Vegas.

Applications are currently being accepted for the 2008 Millionaires Safety Award. For more information, contact Fred Kohloff, AFS director of environmental, health and safety, at 800/537-4237 x 230 or visit www.afsinc.org/ehs/safetyandhealth.

Attend the Environmental 101 Seminar in February
The Environmental 101 seminar will be held Feb. 18-19, at the Sheraton Music City Hotel, Nashville, Tenn. The focus of this seminar will be for attendees to learn about basic environmental issues and concerns facing the metalcasting industry in the U.S., including permitting and reporting, testing, pollution control and environmental management.

Topics to be covered include air quality laws, regulations and reports, waste management laws, regulations and reports, water quality laws, regulations and reports, training requirements, preparing for an inspection and major rules affecting metalcasting facilities

For more information, or to register for this conference, contact AFS customer service at 800/537-4237.

Submit Your Casting of the Year
Engineered Casting Solutions and the AFS Marketing Div. 14 now are accepting submissions for the 2009 Casting Competition. Each year, dozens of castings are sent in with the hopes of becoming the next Casting of the Year.

Find out if your castings stand up against the elite. All castings submitted receive free publicity in Engineered Casting Solutions magazine and the winners are part of an end-user PR campaign. The Casting of the Year and Best in Class winners receive a free license of Magmasoft casting simulation software. Click here to download an entry form. For more information, contact Dave Krugman, AFS PR and marketing coordinator, at dkrugman@afsinc.org or 800/537-4237 x 286.

Visit MetalcastingDesign.com Today
Have you seen all of the new features on www.metalcastingdesign.com? In addition to an ever-growing library of design and purchasing articles to help casting users get the most of their engineered metal castings, the website now offers a comprehensive metalcaster directory, an interactive too to help select the appropriate alloy and casting process for any application, blogs and audio clips. Click over there today and see what you've been missing.

CMI Offers Metallurgy of Gray & Ductile Iron Course
CMI will be offering a Metallurgy of Gray and Ductile Iron course March 10-12 at AFS Headquarters, Schaumburg, Ill. This is a practical, operations-oriented course covering the metallurgy of two of the industry's most important alloys. Included is an introduction to physical metallurgy, iron-carbon-silicon systems, alloy relationships, inoculation, heat treatment, quality control and metallography, ductile iron treatment processes, desulfurization and nodulizing. 

For more information or to attend this course, contact AFS customer service at 800/537-4237, or click here to register.

Analysis & Reduction of Permanent Mold Casting Defects Course Coming
CMI will be offering an Analysis & Reduction of Permanent Mold Casting Defects course March 10-12 at AFS Headquarters, Schaumburg, Ill. This workshop is geared to those involved with aluminum permanent mold and semi-permanent mold casting processes. Identification and causes of defects are discussed along with corrective actions, along with procedures for analyzing and minimizing casting defects. Student work groups will analyze and provide corrective actions for casting defects brought to the class.

For more information or to attend this course, contact AFS customer service at 800/537-4237, or click here to register.

Intro to Metalcasting Internet Course Available
CMI will be offering an Introduction to Metalcasting internet course March 11-May 30. The intent of this online course, offered in conjunction with Mohawk College, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, is to introduce the student to the major concepts associated with metalcasting. Upon successful completion of this course, students will have a basic understanding of metalcasting terminology, common practices and processes, molding methods and materials, furnaces & melting, gating & riser design, and cleaning, finishing & inspection of castings.

For more information or to attend this course, contact AFS customer service at 800/537-4237, or click here to register.

Looking for more information on metallurgy of gray & ductile iron? The publication titled Iron Casting Engineering Handbook can help. AFS Special Publications has everything you need to supplement your metalcasting training. Visit www.afsinc.org/estore or call 800/537-4237 for more information.