2022 will be a historic moment for the Meeting of Tools, Molds, and Dies Production Chain (shortened to ABM Molds). It will be an integral part of ABM WEEK for the first time, which is expected to enlarge its audience and enhance participants’ attendance to discussions about the mining, metals, and materials industry. 

18th Molds will gather leading experts from the industry who will present disruptive technologies that have been increasingly adopted by the industry in other countries and show what the future looks like.

“We’ll host participants with solid academic background and vast experience in the industry. Discussion topics will include new steel and coating materials to increase tool quality and improve the hardened material machining process,” Carlos Eduardo Pinedo, technical director with Heat Tech and one of the event coordinators, explains.

According to Carlos Humberto Sartori, a specialist in Application Engineering and Technical Support at Villares Metals, machining hardened steels has always been controversial.

“Nevertheless, the evolution of machining methods has made this process feasible,” he adds.
Silvio Antonio Bauco, Process Manager at Sandvik Coromant do Brasil, will address this topic in his lecture. 
The initial part of the meeting will also count on the participation of Cristiane Sales Gonçalves, Villares Metals’s Application Engineer and Technical Adviser, who will address the selection of tool steels as a function of the mold and die application; Vagner Braga, Bruning’s Research, Development, and Innovation analyst, who will talk about a method for economic selection of lubricants used in sheet metal forming; and the duo Luiz Roberto Hirschheimer, managing partner of Hirschheimer Serviços, and Sartori, who will present the ten rules for proper heat treatment of tools. 
Paulo Konrad Vencovsky, Development and Applications consultant with HEF Durferrit, will address the use of diamond-like carbon (DLC) coatings in tools, molds, and dies in the second part of the gathering, followed by  Valdecir de Oliveira Pereira, partner and R&D director at GRV Software, who will give a lecture on multilateral platforms in the B2B environment. 

TopSolid’s commercial director, Glauber Longo, will present a technical report on digital factory integration into the tooling environment. Finally, Daniel Rodrigues, director of BRATS Filtros Sinterizados e Pós Metálicos, will discuss the application of metal 3D printing and conformal cooling of molds. 
The session will end with a round table on cutting-edge topics including additive manufacturing. “Technologically speaking, this is something new in the world industry, but it’s growing and finding applications in different industrial segments,” Pinedo explains.

Sartori draws attention to the fact that additive manufacturing technology – a good example of which is the popular 3D printing – already enables the manufacturing of complex molds, opening up many new possibilities for the segment.
Eduardo Tavares Galvani, manager with Höganäs Brasil, will deal with additive manufacturing at the round table moderated by Mario Bocallini Júnior, senior researcher at the IPT’s (Technological Research Institute) metallurgical process laboratory. Giovani Verdi Cappucio, consultant at Villares Metals, will speak about special steels, while Danilo Assad Ludewigs, general director of HEF-Durferrit do Brasil, will examine the topic of heat treatment.

Sartori explains that the technological gap between Brazil and European and North American industry in relation to the development and application of these technologies is indisputable, but “it’s not too late to take this path.” 

“We have to speed up the use of such methods to reach the same level of demand that is seen in those other countries. A lot of people already work on these technologies, but demand is still low,” he stresses

Villares Metals, South America’s largest manufacturer of tool steels and special alloys and operator of the largest mold and die heat treatment facilities, has adopted disruptive technologies like the ones that will be discussed at the meeting for some time.

“Voestalpine Group, of which our company is a part, already operates with additive manufacturing in other countries,” Sartori adds.

As a result of the integration of 18th Molds into ABM WEEK, Sartori hopes the event will reach equipment maintenance professionals from the steel industry, a segment that used to be somewhat distant from this event.
“It will be a great opportunity for us to talk with a different audience after two years away because of the pandemic,” he says.

The 6th ABM WEEK is hosted by Gerdau and is sponsored by the following companies: Açokorte, Alkegen, Amepa GmbH, Aperam, ArcelorMittal, Atomat Services, AutoForm, BM Group/Polytec, BRC, BR Event Materials ,CBMM, Combustol, Clariant, Danieli, Dassault Systèmes, DME Engenharia, Eirich, Enacom, Engineering, Evonik, Fosbel, GSI, Harsco, Hatch/CISDI, Ibar, Imerys, IMS Messsysteme GmbH, Isra Vision Parsytec, John Cockerill Industry, Kuttner, Metso Outotec, Nalco Water/Ecolab, Nouryon, Primetals Technologies, PSI Metals, Reframax , RHI Magnesita, Saint-Gobain, SMS Group Paul Wurth/ Vetta, Spraying Systems, Suez, SunCoke, Tecnosulfur, Ternium, Timken, Thermo Fischer, TopSolid, TRB, Unimetal, Usiminas, Vale, Vamtec, Vesuvius, Villares Metals, Wallonia.be (ADI – Industrial Services, John Cockerill Hydrogen, BorderSystem, Datanet International, Synthetis e PEPITe), White Martins, e Yellow Solution.Special support: CNPq. Institutional support: Abal, Abendi, Abifa, AIST, AIST Mena, Alacero, CBCA, Ibram, Icz, Instituto Aço Brasil, CIMM, Ind4.0.