General Motor's Malleable Iron Foundry is a 350,000 square foot plant located in Saginaw, Michigan.  The plant opened in 1917 and has been in continuous operation since.  However as GM moves into producing vehicles with higher fuel efficiency, it no longer made sense to produce components out of heavy iron when they could be made with aluminum.  This May was the last month the plant would be in production.  It has been known for quite some time that this plant would close.  Meanwhile, down the street is a much larger plant that is making components out of aluminum.  General Motors announced it will invest hundreds of millions of dollars into the expansion and upgrades of that plant.  So there will very little impact on Saginaw's economy due to Malleable's closure.

 

Malleable Iron has supported thousands of families for almost a century including mine  I've been inside more times than I can remember throughout my life.  When I heard it was closing its doors this week, I knew I had to get some pictures.  Saturday (May 19th), I grabbed my camera and headed on over to the plant to shoot some interior photos.  It was a completely different place without people.  The dark areas you will see in these photos were typically lit brilliant orange by the molten iron.  What was still there was the smell of heated iron (which smells just like greasy hamburgers).  I always loved that smell, glad I got one last whiff of it before the gates are locked. 

 

Enjoy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That place is remarkably clean, as foundries go. It's eerie to see it with no activity; I've been in foundries, most recently the JI Case facility at Racine (now shut down), and they're awesome places, especially the ones that pour large castings. Noisy, hot, dangerous, often dusty, and very exciting to an industry geek.

 

  Can you elaborate on the change from iron to aluminum? Are we talking about engines? Frames? Body panels? Is this an industry wide event? Will cars last longer due to aluminum construction? Thanks.

Oh, I'm definitely not an industry expert on this.

 

Malleable, in its final days only made transmission gears.  It did manufacture parts for engines though in the past, and many components have gone aluminum due to improved alloys.  I don't believe there is an entire industry-wide switch to aluminum though.

Wow.

 

   Can you elaborate on the change from iron to aluminum? Are we talking about engines? Frames? Body panels? Is this an industry wide event? Will cars last longer due to aluminum construction? Thanks.

 

It's been a while since I studied/worked with this stuff, so I'll try to avoid going in over my head.

 

< :speech: > The biggest advantage to aluminum is weight reduction to reduce fuel consumption while maintaining/improving performance and handling.

 

Some major engine components like intake manifolds, cylinder heads and pistons, and some engine blocks and oil pans have been cast aluminum on some models for a while, and they reduce weight by quite a lot. The manufacturing process is less costly and possibly more energy-efficient than cast iron, too. Aluminum also can be used in other large castings like transmission cases.

 

Parts that operate at high temperatures like exhaust manifolds or that are subject to high stress and wear like crankshafts, camshafts and valves, probably will continue to be made from iron & steel alloys for quite a while, yet. Likewise nuts and bolts and other structural fasteners.

 

One of the obstacles to the use of more aluminum in engines has been that an engine changes temperature as it starts and warms up and operates at highway speeds, and aluminum and iron/steel expand and contract at different rates and to different extents with temperature changes. It's difficult to maintain the critical relationships in dimensions between the two materials where they interface with each other.

 

I don't expect to see much aluminum in frames and body panels in the near future. Aluminum is even more vulnerable than steel to the corrosive effects of road salt, and it's difficult to get finishes and anti-corrosion coatings to adhere to aluminum, especially when it's exposed to harsh environmental conditions. Composite materials are less costly than aluminum and easier to form into complex shapes, and highly resistant to corrosion.

 

Steel is still the most cost-effective material for frames and major load-bearing components, even though there are composites like carbon-fiber that have a better strength-to-weight ratio. The technology exists to built a unibody structure entirely from molded composites that would be strong, light and corrosion-resistant, but because of possible buyer misgivings about crash safety, I doubt if we'll see it mass-produced in the US so long as there's such an outrageous disparity in size and weight among personal vehicles. </ :speech: >