MANUFACTURING HEAT TREAT NEWS

Industry 4.0 + IIoT = Smart Industrial Ovens & Furnaces

BOTW-50w  Source:  Eurotherm by Schneider Electric

“Effective process control and automation technologies link thermal processing equipment such as ovens and furnaces with the operator and the supply-and-delivery chain — in a seamless network of information exchange.”

Read More:  Industry 4.0 + IIoT=Smart Industrial Ovens & Furnaces by Perter Sherwin

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StrikoWestofen Opens Heat-Treatment Business Unit

As of immediately, StrikoWestofen covers another step in the production chain of the light metal casting industry. From now on, heat treatment units for cast aluminium parts are another core competence of StrikoWestofen.

This is made possible by the recent takeover of the employees of BPR-Engineering GmbH from Rheda-Wiedenbrück. The 20 years of expertise of Frank Herkenräder, the founder of the company, and his team form the basis of the new StrikoWestofen business unit Heat Treatment.

The goal of this extension of our product portfolio is to meet the customers’ needs even better. The new Heat Treatment business unit pursues a holistic approach: heat treatment furnaces, quenching units and product carriers are not seen as individual components of a system but as part of a whole. This allows enormous cost savings due to the better coordination of processes, in some cases bringing distorsions down to 0% and reducing energy consumption by up to 30%.

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Heat Treatment and Wicked Problems

BOTW-50w  Source:  Linked In – Peter Sherwin

“I am wide awake on a late night flight from Kolkata to Delhi (India) so I pick up my phone to continue reading “Design to Grow – How Coca Cola learned to combine scale and agility.” I happened on the chapter discussing wicked problems – with sustainability of water use being one of Coke’s wicked problem (basically a wicked problem is one that is ill-defined, has many uncontrollable variables and has no so-called right or optimal solutions).

Having spent the week traveling around India and visiting customers with typical heat treat problems and seeing and hearing about and presenting the latest technology solutions in Heat Treat – I have come to the conclusion Heat Treatment is itself a wicked problem.”

Read More:  Peter Sherwin – Eurotherm – Linked IN

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Vacuum Heat Treatment’s Role in Additive Manufacturing (AM) 3D Printing

BOTW-50w  Source:  Global Heat Treatment Network

“Vacuum heat treatment tasks for AM manufactured parts is the same process as  traditional subtractive manufacturing and its purpose is to assure AM parts has the correct physical and metallurgical properties for specific applications.  In some cases, when a bidder is involved, the purpose of the heat treatment process is to deciding and sinter parts. Most vacuum furnaces use up to 800°C degrees to relieve stress and a higher temperature of up to 1800°C for other processes.

Vacuum furnaces with high vacuum levels are preferred to heat treatment equipment to process AM parts. AM parts made from Titanium, Cobalt, Aluminum require vacuum levels of up to 10-6 mbar with 99.9995 Argon purity.  Argon is the preferred gas because of its neutrality and that it has no adverse reaction with the above alloy components.  Creating an Alfa surface layer on titanium parts is not desirable and should be avoided.

The small parts and small production volume influences vacuum furnaces of small to medium size. The next challenge for the heat treatment industry is to integrate heat treatment process into the AM equipment in one continuous process.”

Read More:  Amazing Vacuum Furnaces:  Vacuum Heat Treatment’s Role in Additive Manufacturing 3D Printing by Janusz Kowalewski

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Quality Counts: Gas Nitriding

BOTW-50w  Source:  Thermal Processing for Gear Solutions

In general, nitriding of parts involves a thermal process that provides a tough, corrosion-resistant, and wear-resistant surface with less distortion compared to other case hardening processes due to processing temperature and no need for quenching. There are different methods of nitriding, including gas nitriding, plasma/ion nitriding, and salt-bath nitriding. This article focuses on gas nitriding.

Read More:  Quality Counts:  Gas Nitriding by Jim Oakes

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Heat Treating Involved in Production of Speakers

BOTW-50w  Source:  ETMM The Website

“One look at the back of the part told me it was filled with one sub-gate (see Figure 2). In the US at the time, we were trying to pack out this type of speaker grill with 12-drop systems, which resulted in poor fill and a lot of stress in the piece. In Japan, mouldmakers were using a mould material developed to enhance venting. This was a steel manufactured with interconnecting pores so the gas could pass through the seemingly solid piece of metal. To make this steel, powder metal was combined with metal fibers for added strength, cold-pressed into master blocks measuring 215 by 300 by 650 mm, sintered and heat-treated to 35 HRC. It was available with average pore diameter of either 7 or 20 microns; porosity averaged 25 percent of the mass of the block. Other materials available at the time ranged from porous ceramics to sintered porous vent buttons.”

Read More: The Potential of Enhanced Venting Materials by Tom Schade

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Walking Beam Furnace Energy Savings: New Skid Pipe Insulation Concept

BOTW-50w  Source:  Heat Processing On-Line

This paper discusses how energy consumption and energy loss can be reduced in reheating furnaces of hot rolling mills by using new lightweight refractory materials and a new lining concept for the skid pipe insulation.

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Heat Treatment Used in Building Conformal Cooling Inserts

BOTW-50w  Source:  MoldMaking Technology

“The process of building conformal cooling inserts can be generally broken up into four steps: 1) simulating the molding process, 2) insert design and optimization, 3) 3D direct metal laser melting, and 4) post processing. Simulation software in the first step allows tool designers to visualize flow capabilities and thermal properties that can cause mold deformation prior to actual production. Cavity block or core block inserts then can be designed with conformal water lines in place, based on simulation results. The layer-by-layer 3D-printing that comes next not only can be completed in a number of materials that match conventional tool steels, but the resulting built-in channels will exhibit outstanding geometric flexibility. Post-processing tasks include stress relief and heat treatment, using EDM to machine the part from its platform base, polishing the part surface, adding water lines, and inspection.”

Read More:  Reshaping Moldmaking by Lou Young

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PVD Coatings and Tool Steel Selection

BOTW-50w  Moldmaking Technology – July 2016

“When it comes to steel selection, the standard grades and heat-treat cycles might need to be changed depending on the selected PVD coating.  The moldmaker must ensure that the application temperature of the PVD process is lower than the heat-treatment cycle temperature that is used on the steel.

…..too often the customers allow the steel and heat treatment to determine the coating that can be considered. ”

Read More:  PVD Coatings and Tool Steel Selection by Mark Falkingham

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Stainless Steel Can Be Heat -Treated to 50 – 53 HRC

International Mold Steel will introduce S-Star-A, a 420 stainless steel in the annealed condition that can be heat-treated to hardness of 50-53 HRC and will be stocked in plate form to 6″ thick. S-Star-PH is a prehardened (30/34 HRC) 420 stainless steel that can also be heated to 50-53 HRC and will be stocked in round bar ranging to 4″ in diameter.

The company also recently added new processing capabilities, including a large plate saw that can cut to 24″ thickness, side milling to 31.5” square and gun drilling to 1 3/4″ in diameter by 84″ long.

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