Two major international steel corporations recently announced plans to invest in existing steel mills in along the northwest Indiana lakeshore, as part of collective bargaining agreements reached with the United Steelworkers union.
ArcelorMittal, based in Luxembourg, and Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel together will invest $5.6 billion into their U.S. operations in an effort to ensure that the local mills remain sustainable, including Gary Works, U.S. Steel’s largest mill.
A global automotive parts manufacturer recently announced its plans to invest in the expansion of its Kentucky aluminum products plant.
Kobelco Aluminum Products & Extrusions Inc. (KPEX), the U.S. subsidiary of Kobe Steel, Ltd., based in Japan, expects the expansion to increase the production capacity of its plant in Bowling Green, Kentucky, in response to the growing demand for automotive extrusions and fabricated products in the United States.
Established in April 2016, KPEX manufactures aluminum extruded products for use as bumper materials and car frame materials. In November 2018, KPEX began integrated production, ranging from melting and casting to the final manufacturing process of fabrication. Plans call for new equipment for melting, extrusion, and fabrication to go into mass production in the first half of 2020. When the expansion is completed, KPEX will have two melting furnaces and two extrusion presses. Production capacity will increase to 1,000 tons per month, from the current 500 tons per month.
“Kobelco Aluminum Products & Extrusions Inc. was established in April 2016 using our technology from Japan, and with the cooperation of Kentucky officials, our customers, and all the employees working at Kobelco, we were able to successfully begin mass production here in the US,” said Hiroaki Matsubara, Kobe Steel senior managing executive officer. “And now, supported by even more robust demand for our products, we are proud to announce that we will be making our second major investment in our operations in less than two years. With that, our aim is to continue to make our contribution to the weight reduction of automobiles and to further develop our business footprint in the Bowling Green facility.”
Kobelco’s Bowling Green plant expansion (PC: Kobelco)
For a large percentage of the world’s population, Christmas is about the birth of Jesus Christ, God’s gift of His Son to save a sinful world. That Gift is “the Reason for the season.” Although commercialism continues to grow, there are those diehard fans of Christmas who try to preserve the real meaning and significance of the holiday. Christmas is about giving. (Speaking of “die hard,” my son and I just finished watching Die Hard 1, the classic “Christmas” movie starring Bruce Willis. It may be “classic,” but it doesn’t appear to have anything to do with “the reason for the season.” Nonetheless, you might enjoy it . . . especially if you have teenage or 20-something men in your home.)
One of my favorite quotes about “giving” is from a Christian missionary named Jim Elliot. “He is no fool who gives [away] what he cannot keep,” said Elliot, “to gain what he cannot lose.” He was referring to giving away of one’s physical life (which you can’t keep) to gain eternal life (which you can’t lose). Mr. Elliot, at the young age of 28, did that exact thing — gave his physical life trying to share the Source of eternal life with others. You can read more about his story here.
Since “giving” characterizes the season, I’d like to give a “thank you” to some of the people who have helped Heat Treat Today grow to be a leading heat treat industry media brand in 2018.
First, thanks to all of the manufacturers with in-house heat treat departments, especially in the aerospace, automotive, medical, and energy sectors who read our content or listen to our Heat Treat Radiopodcasts. Our hope is that you’ll continue to find the content we provide more and more helpful in your work. You’re the ones we have in mind every time we prepare our content for publication. Please let us know if we can be more helpful.
Thanks also goes to the growing number of heat treat industry suppliers who are finding Heat Treat Today an effective way to get the word out about their products or services. It’s these industry suppliers who pay the bills and make this venture possible. Thank you, friends!
Finally, thank you to the people who make Heat Treat Today happen every day!
Thank you, Laura Miller, editor, for your faithful labors. You’re a joy to work with, and you deserve much more recognition than you receive.
Thank you, Brandon Glenn, web design manager and nephew (not son) of yours truly. Brandon, your help has been invaluable and your passion for the true Reason for the season is something I pray grows and grows. Thanks for all your help.
Thanks to Jonathan Lloyd for his work on Heat Treat Radio and CONGRATULATIONS for completing just days ago his undergraduate studies in audio/visual arts. Jonathan, you will be successful. Keep your eyes on the Reason for the season as you progress through life.
Heat Treat Today has added several other helpers this year including Meredith Egeland (formerly Meredith Glenn, my daughter) who helps with social media, Kelly Condon (mother of Jonathan Lloyd) who has helped with accounting and billing, and Michelle LaMay who recently joined us to help with editorial content.
Second to last and most cherished in my heart is the lovely and gracious Mrs. Glenn (Mary) who makes every day a joy. Thanks for your help!
Finally, thanks to the One who gives all of us on the Heat Treat Today team the ability to do anything worthwhile, Jesus Christ, the real Reason for Christmas.
Blessings to you and your families from the Heat Treat Today family.
Heat Treat Today will not publish content December 24–January 1. We’ll return with new and exciting content on January 2, 2019. Be safe.
The monthly Executive Economic Summary published by the Industrial Heating Equipment Association showed slowing growth in November. Nonetheless, the report suggests that the economy will continue to grow steadily in 2019 despite a moderation of growth rates.
Here are a few highlights from the report which is made available in its entirety to IHEA members each month:
IHEA Credit Movement, November 2018
Indexes moving up included:
Car and light truck sales have increased slightly. This index was expected to drop significantly earlier this year and never did.
Housing starts continued to grow but more slowly than in previous months.
Steel consumption continues to be strong.
Metal prices also remain steady or increasing.
Capital investment — up.
Credit index — also up.
IHEA Transportation, November 2018
Those indices that retreated include:
Capacity utilization. Still slightly below 80 which is where economists like to see it. Nonetheless, this number is still quite high compared to recent months.
Purchasing managers index also slipped but continues to show significant growth.
Durable goods orders — down
Factory goods orders — down
Transportation index — down
Although a number of indexes were down, almost all continue to show growth or slight levels of economic contraction.
The 12-page report dives deeply into the above 11 indexes dedicating a complete page to each index.
Ann Goyer, Executive Director of IHEA
The complete report is available to IHEA member companies. To obtain a copy of the report, please contact Anne Goyer, Executive Vice President of the Industrial Heating Equipment Association (www.ihea.org). You can email Anne by clicking here.
The world’s first 100-ton vacuum hot press with gas fan quench cooling capability for up to a 4,000 pound part has recently been installed and is in operation at a commercial and aerospace diffusion bonding operation in Chandler, Arizona.
Refrac Systems selected Solar Manufacturing, part of the Solar Atmospheres family of companies and based in Souderton, Pennsylvania, to perform the installation and startup of a large 100-ton force vacuum hot press that includes a 2-Bar Gas Fan Quench cooling system (GFQVHP). The furnace hot zone was modified to contain 100-ton on load hydraulic ram centered over the zone which is configured to diffusion bond parts up to 36″ wide x 48″ long x 30″ tall. Besides being specifically designed to diffusion bond large plastic injection molding dies, and concurrently quench hardening them, the system is finding applications in bonding advanced superalloy heat exchangers where the quench cooling offers a significant improvement on performance.
“We really drew on the extensive engineering experience base that Solar Manufacturing has for building large gas fan quench cooled vacuum furnaces coupled with our own vacuum hot pressing experience to build this very unique hot press system,” said Norm Hubele, President of Refrac Systems. “Solar’s engineering team really helped out with a lot of great design ideas and manufacturing experience, and the system really contains the most robust and reliable furnace engineering content that both companies could muster.”
“Norm put together a team of engineers to design and build this state-of-the-art GFQVHP, and it contains many innovations,” said William Jones, CEO of Solar Atmospheres. “Throughout the entire process, Norm personally reviewed all aspects of the design and added considerable insight to the development of this unique vacuum furnace system.”
During the day-to-day operation of heat treat departments, many habits are formed and procedures followed that sometimes are done simply because that’s the way they’ve always been done. One of the great benefits of having a community of heat treaters is to challenge those habits and look at new ways of doing things. Heat TreatToday‘s 101 Heat TreatTips, tips and tricks that come from some of the industry’s foremost experts, were initially published in the FNA 2018 Special Print Edition, as a way to make the benefits of that community available to as many people as possible. This special edition is available in a digital format here.
In today’s Technical Tuesday, we continue an intermittent series of posts drawn from the 101 tips. The category for this post is Quenching, and today’s tips–#8, #38, and #81–are from three different sources: Dan Herring, “The Heat Treat Doctor®”, of The Herring Group; Combustion Innovations; and Super Systems, Inc.
Heat TreatTip #8
14 Quench Oil Selection Tips
Dan Herring, “The Heat Treat Doctor®”, of The Herring Group
Here are a few of the important factors to consider when selecting a quench oil.
Part Material – chemistry & hardenability
Part loading – fixturing, girds, baskets, part spacing, etc.
Part geometry and mass – thin parts, thick parts, large changes in section size
Distortion characteristics of the part (as a function of loading)
Stress state from prior (manufacturing) operations
Oil type – characteristics, cooling curve data
Oil speed – fast, medium, slow, or marquench
Oil temperature and maximum rate of rise
Agitation – agitators (fixed or variable speed) or pumps
Effective quench tank volume
Quench tank design factors, including number of agitators or pumps, location of agitators, size of agitators, propellor size (diameter, clearance in draft tube), internal tank baffling (draft tubes, directional flow vanes, etc.), flow direction, quench elevator design (flow restrictions), volume of oil, type of agitator (fixed v. 2 speed v. variable speed), maximum (design) temperature rise, and heat exchanger type, size, heat removal rate in BTU/hr & instantaneous BTU/minute.
Keep water out of your oil quench. A few pounds of water at the bottom of an IQ quench tank can cause a major fire. Be hyper-vigilant that no one attempts to recycle fluids that collect on the charge car.
According to Super Systems, Inc., there are one of three problems to consider if your quench is just not cutting it. Although SSI focuses more on atmosphere control systems, when parts come out soft, the problem isn’t always the atmosphere – sometimes it’s the quench. Here are three things to consider regarding your quench:
First, check the composition of the quench media. Is it up to spec? Does it need to be refreshed?
Is the quench receiving adequate agitation to thoroughly quench the load?
Is the quench at the right temperature? If the bath is too warm when the load enters, quenching won’t go well!
Photo credit: Heat Treat Today FNA 2018; Super Systems, Inc.
If you have any questions, feel free to contact the expert who submitted the Tip or contact Heat TreatTodaydirectly. If you have a heat treat tip that you’d like to share, please send to the editor, and we’ll put it in the queue for our next Heat TreatTipsissue.
A U.S. steel producer recently announced plans to construct a state-of-the-art electric arc furnace (EAF) mill for flat roll steel in the U.S. southwest with an eye to serve the Mexican flat roll steel market.
Mark. D. Millett, Steel Dynamics President and Chief Executive Officer
Steel Dynamics, Inc. (SDI), based in Fort Wayne, Indiana, anticipates the facility to have an annual production capacity of approximately 3.0 million tons with the capability to produce the latest generation of Advanced High Strength Steel products. The project will include a galvanizing line with an annual capacity of 450,000 tons with a product offering serving the energy, automotive, and equipment manufacturing industries.
SDI currently expects to locate the facility in the southwestern United States in order to reach the underserved Mexican flat roll steel market as well as the southern and southwestern states. Determination of the final site location is subject to state and local government infrastructure and incentive support with an expectation of construction beginning in 2020, followed by the commencement of operations in the second half of 2021.
“We believe our unique operating culture, coupled with our considerable experience in successfully constructing and operating cost-effective and highly profitable steel mills, positions us well to execute this greenfield opportunity and to deliver strong long-term value creation,” said Mark. D. Millett, President and Chief Executive Officer. “We plan to utilize new technologies that will further reduce the gap between existing EAF and integrated steel mill production capabilities.”
15 Quick Heat Treat News Items to Keep You Current
Heat TreatToday offers News Chatter, a feature highlighting representative moves, transactions, and kudos from around the industry.
Personnel and Company Chatter
Mike Paponetti recently accepted the position of Sales Manager at Solar Atmospheres South Carolina. Prior to accepting this position, Mike was the Regional Sales Manager at Solar’s Hermitage, Pennsylvania, facility.
Alliance Steel LLC has announced plans to relocate the company from the northwest suburbs of Chicago, Illinois, to Gary, Indiana, where a new plant will allow the company to consolidate its multi-structure facility into a single-structure facility.
William M. Brown, Harris Corporation Chairman, President, and CEO, has been named chairman of the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) Board of Governors for 2019. He succeeds outgoing AIA Chairman Tom Kennedy, chairman and CEO of Raytheon.
A new 107000-square-foot facility will focus on additive manufacturing, advanced composites, assembly, and industry 4.0 processes for aerospace design and manufacturing. GKN Aerospace’s new Global Technology Centre in Bristol, United Kingdom, has received support through the UK Governments Aerospace Technology Institute.
A provider of heat treatments and specialist thermal processing servicesheld an official opening ceremony last week at its brand new facility on the Advanced Manufacturing Park (AMP), Rotherham, Yorkshire. Bodycote‘s new advanced heat treatment center, now fully operational and supporting customer requirements, offers a range of heat treatment services and has been established to support the aerospace and power generation markets in the UK and Europe.
An Iowa-based foundry recently sold its operating assets to its Galesburg, Illinois-based sister company, Aluminum Castings Company, an aluminum sand castings foundry. The transition will include the relocation of the ALCAST Midwest Works LLC‘s heat treating and grinding operations back to the Fairfield facility from their Clarence, Missouri, facility.
A supplier of live tooling for the North American machine tool industry, Prospect Heights, Illinois-based Heimatec Inc., has become part of a new corporation, Platinum Tooling Technologies Inc.
German car maker Porsche AG and Schuler, Inc., a Canton, MI-based provider of metalforming technologies and products announced plans to build an innovative press shop together for the car factory of the future. The objective of Schuler and Porsche’s joint venture is to create a so-called Smart Press Shop as part of a networked Industry 4.0 approach. The new press shop’s pioneering technologies will enable the highly flexible production of complex car body parts; whereby the focus will be on aluminum body panels and small batch production.
Constellium contracted with Tri-Arrows Aluminum Holding Inc. (TAAH) for the supply of cold coils from its Logan plant in Kentucky for up to five years as part of its agreement with UACJ Corporation and TAAH, its U.S. subsidiary, to acquire TAAH’s 49% stake in Constellium-UACJ ABS, LLC. Constellium’s plant in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, will continue to ramp-up its Auto Body Sheet substrate capability to gradually become Bowling Green’s sole supplier of cold coils.
Equipment Chatter
A Japanese customer has placed an order with EBNER to expand an existing HICON/H2® bell annealer facility. The facility, which spheroidizes and recrystallizes coils of steel strip, will be upgraded with two additional gas-fired heating bells.
A natural gas-fired conveyor oven was shipped to a supplier of the oil and gas industry by Wisconsin Oven Corporation. This conveyor oven will be used for the preheating and powder coating of couplings. This conveyor oven has sufficient capability to heat 1,000 pounds per hour of steel parts from 70° F to 1000° F. In addition, Wisconsin Oven Corporation announced the shipment of a natural gas-fired conveyor oven to a leader in the forging industry. This conveyor oven will be used as a preheating oven for aluminum billets.
A Gruenberg truck-in-oven was recently shipped to the oil and gas industry by Thermal Product Solutions. The truck in oven will be used to test parts used for downhole drilling.
EBNER expands an existing HICON/H2® bell annealer facility
Wisconsin Oven Corp ships a natural gas-fired conveyor oven shipped to oil and gas industry
Wisconsin Oven Corp ships a natural gas-fired conveyor oven shipped to forging industry
Alloy Engineering Company, an industry leader in the design and manufacture of alloy equipment for high-temperature and corrosive industrial applications, celebrated its 75th anniversary in the month of November. The Berea, Ohio, company’s equipment is used for both commercial and in-house heat treating, and for processes such as annealing, hardening, carbo-nitriding, carburizing, nitriding, tempering, brazing, and sintering.
SMS Group has won the German Design Award in 2018.
Paulo is celebrating its milestone 75th year in business. The company was founded in 1943 in St. Louis, conceived originally as Paulo Products Company was originally conceived as a manufacturer with heat treatment provided as a secondary service. Helping customers succeed by offering thermal processing solutions is where the company excelled. Founders husband and wife Ben and Pauline Rassieur had previously worked for Central Mine Equipment Company. Pauline, after whom Paulo is named, was one of the first women to earn an engineering degree from the University of Missouri.
SMS Group has won the German Design Award 2019 in the category “Industry” for the additively manufactured 3D spray header. The component for which plant and mechanical engineering company SMS group has received the German Design Award 2019 in the category “Industry” is a spray head used to cool dies in forging presses.
Heat Treat Today is pleased to join in the announcements of growth and achievement throughout the industry by highlighting them here on our News Chatter page. Please send any information you feel may be of interest to manufacturers with in-house heat treat departments especially in the aerospace, automotive, medical, and energy sector to the editor at editor@heattreattoday.com.
Researchers at Idaho National Laboratory have discovered how to extend the useful life of superalloys by thousands of hours by employing a unique recipe of heating and cooling to create a microstructure that can withstand extreme heat. The discovery could improve materials performance for electrical generators and nuclear reactors.
An excerpt:
“The key is to heat and cool the superalloy in a specific way. That creates a microstructure within the material that can withstand high heat more than six times longer than an untreated counterpart.”
Dr. Subhashish Meher, INL postdoctoral researcher in Materials Science and Engineering
“We came up with a way to make a superalloy that is much more resistant to heat-related failures. This could be useful in electricity generators and elsewhere,” said Subhashish Meher, an INL materials scientist, lead author of a new Science Advances paper describing the research.
Photo credit and caption: INL.gov/”INL materials scientist Subhashish Meher uses a local electron atom probe at the Center for Advanced Energy Studies to study the microstructure of treated superalloys.”
With the purchase of a gas nitride unit, a custom heat treat processing equipment manufacturer and leading provider of full-service induction hardening process services extends its strategy to expand offerings in the automotive sector and expand deeper into the aerospace market.
Ben Crawford, Contour CEO and President
Contour, which recently acquired the gas nitride unit from a major U.S. furnace manufacturer for installation at its headquarters in Indianapolis, Indiana, in late spring 2019, began manufacturing induction heat treat systems and offering commercial induction processing services. The purchase of a gas nitride unit allows Contour to expand services focusing on distortion critical, complex parts for clients. With the addition of nitriding, it allows increased offerings to solve complex parts demanding dimensional control through engineered processes.
“Innovation is what Contour was built on,” said Neil Merrell, director of heat treat. “Today is no different. Our customers rely on Contour’s controlled heat-treatment processes, 100% hardness verification, and dimensional inspections. Our goal is to drive out part variation and provide a repeatable dimensionally accurate part.”
“We have an extremely deep and talented bench of in-house engineering and metallurgical teams, and they couldn’t be more excited about Contour’s entry into the Gas Nitride market,” said Ben Crawford, Contour CEO and President. For several years, Contour has planned having a more significant presence in the aerospace, agricultural, heavy truck and light automotive industries. The purchase of this gas nitride unit will allow us to do just that and compliment our induction and dimensional services.”
“We plan to make Gas Nitriding capabilities available to our clients at our Silao, Mexico, plant in the near future,” added Crawford. “We are committed to offering innovative thermal heat treat solutions to our clients globally and this investment is proof of our commitment.”
