Castings Technology International (Cti) presents a new drive to help foundries to boost quality, reduce costs and cut waste, while producing greener, cleaner castings. Cti, based on the Advanced Manufacturing Park at Catcliffe, near Sheffield, specialises in helping castings companies to solve problems and improve production. The organisation also supplies the high value manufacturing sector with low volume, precision steel, superalloy and titanium castings that would otherwise be difficult to source. Cti launched its new initiative, appointing one of the world’s leading experts on castings technology, Professor John Campbell OBE, as an adviser and board member.
Prof Campbell developed the Cosworth Casting Process for making aluminium alloy cylinder heads and blocks for Formula One racing engines to eliminate cylinder head failures, which had previously been running at 50 per cent during in house testing. This failure rate was reduced to zero by the new castings. He went on to help develop the Ablation Casting Process, used by Alotech, in the US. Later, he spent 15 years at the University of Birmingham as Professor of Casting Technology.
He has been honoured by The Metals Society (TMS) in the USA by the ‘John Campbell Symposium’ in 2001, by the American Foundry Society, giving its celebrity Annual Hoyte Lecture in 2012, and The Institute of Cast Metals Engineers in the UK by the annual award of the John Campbell Medal, recognising outstanding contribution to the science and understanding of metal casting. He has also been elected as a Fellow of the Academy of Engineering.
Prof Campbell made a presentation “Future Foundry” at the Factory 2050 conference on the future shape of manufacturing, organised by the University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre earlier this year, as a result of which members of the Cti board to invited him to join the board.
He said: “Naturally, I am honoured and delighted to be joining Cti. It’s an exciting prospect. I look forward to assisting the company to consolidate and expand its worldwide reputation. It opens the possibility of launching truly important developments which have the potential to revolutionise the casting industry. There are projects under Cti’s roof right now which have the potential to demonstrate what is possible in terms of the production of cast parts of better quality, at higher productivity, reduced environmental impact and lower costs.”
Cti’s Richard Gould said: “Having Professor Campbell join us is a real coup. He is renowned for the work he has done to solve problems for companies and set new performance levels for castings. His advice will be of great benefit to both Cti and its clients.”