Bill St. Thomas Business Development Manager Lindberg/MPH Source: Lindberg/MPH.com
A manufacturer is expanding their heat treat capacities with a new box furnace, designed for air atmosphere applications, from a North American furnace provider.
Lindberg/MPH's heat treat furnace has a maximum temperature rating of 1,250°F and a load capacity of 6,000 lbs and is designed to accept fixtures that are 48" wide by 84" deep by 48" high. A full-width roller hearth is located across the furnace chamber floor for manual loading and load support. Temperature is controlled by a Honeywell DC2500 Series controller with an adjustable alarm set-point and latching output relay; the controller disconnects the power to the heating elements and sounds an audible alarm in an event that temperature exceeds desired set-point.
“The high velocity forced heating system circulates heat evenly within the furnace chamber," commented Bill St. Thomas, business development manager at Lindberg/MPH. "[This] assures rapid and uniform heat transfer throughout the workload.”
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ThermTech, heat treat service provider in Waukesha, WI, has increased their capabilities to provide services for the medical, aerospace, mining and oil, nuclear, and agricultural industries.
Jason Kupkovits, vice president of Sales & Strategic Direction at the company, commented on that ThermTech will be continuing their 40 years of quality assurance, turnaround time, on-site engineering, and customer service standards.
Ben Gasbarre Executive Vice President of Sales Gasbarre Thermal Processing Systems
Partnering with Gasbarre Thermal Processing Systems, ThermTech significantly increased their normalizing, annealing, stress relieving, tempering, and neutral hardening capacity through the acquisition of three new furnaces. These three furnaces --- now fully operational --- include: a dual zone, direct-fired box austenitizing furnace; a large batch tempering furnace; and an additional tempering furnace. These furnaces are compliant with AMS2750 at different class certifications.
ThermTech has also added two additional vacuum furnaces from Ipsen, USA. The furnaces have dimensions of 36” wide x 36” tall x 48” long with capabilities of quenching up to 6 bars of pressure utilizing nitrogen or argon gas as the quench medium. These large vacuum furnaces are AMS class 3 (+/-15°F) certified capable of AMS2750.
ThermTech added a solution annealing furnace from Williams Industrial Service to give their operational aluminum line additional heat treat capabilities. This line is capable of a sub-15 second transfer to air blast quench, a water quench range of 55°F up to boiling, a sub-7 second transfer to water quench which exceeds AMS 2770/AMS2771 specifications, as well as load thermocouple monitoring during the solution treatment, quenching, and aging.
Daniel Hill, PE Sales Engineer AFC-Holcroft Source: AFC-Holcroft
Another recent acquisition includes a new austempering/marquenching furnace from Michigan based AFC-Holcroft. This furnace can handle a single part racked in the vertical orientation up to 56" long. The working dimension of the furnace is 36" W x 72" L x 56" H and is capable of operating with salt temperatures ranging from 350°F -- 750°F. "The UBQA system is an environmentally friendly ‘green technology,’" commented Dan Hill, sales engineer at AFC-Holcroft, "which can be used to impart resistance to distorting, cracking or warping of heat-treated components.” Applicable processes include marquenching, austempering, and carburizing with additional washing and tempering capacity accompanying the new marquenching/austempering furnace. Installation is expected in early 2023.
The heat treat service provider's long-term strategy is to increase growth in the Midwest and on a national scale. This includes adding more workers and integrating the use of a robotics handling systems, which is expected to be installed in late 2022.
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Alberto Martin Sales Director -- Spain Aalberts surface technologies TEY
International manufacturer Aalberts surface technologies Group will receive two vacuum furnaces to the group’s Spanish branch in País Vasco. The system on order solves the manufacturer's problem with hardening large dimension elements.
The manufacturer mainly operates in the automotive industry, as well as the machine industry and, with this order, has signed its tenth contract with international furnace supplier, SECO/WARWICK. Aalberts is ordering the heat treat furnace provider's horizontal retort furnace for high-efficiency tempering with vacuum purging and the Vector® vacuum furnace. The Vector, with a useful working space of 600mm x 600mm x 900mm will increase the efficiency of the current hardening plant, improving the economics of hardening processes. The retort furnace will significantly increase the processing capacity of the current hardening plant for tempering processes.
Once again, SECO/WARWICK equipment will contribute to increasing the efficiency of our entire Group," said Alberto Martin, director of Sales --- Spain at Aalberts surface technologies TEY. Aalberts surface technologies is a global company with over 80 years of experience, operating in over 70 countries.
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Mike Coburn Technical Sales AFC-Holcroft Source: LinkedIn
A major North American supplier of agricultural and lawn equipment purchased a complete batch austemper line from a U.S.-based supplier of heat treating equipment. The line, consisting of two universal batch quench-austemper (UBQA) units, is equipped with a pre-treatment spray dunk wash, a post-treatment multi-stage washer, pre-heat temper furnaces, a salt reclaiming system, and a salt holding tank.
The AFC-Holcroft batch austemper line also includes an AFC-Holcroft EZ™ 4500 endothermic gas generator that will provide gas to the furnace units. A BatchMaster™ supervisory control system is included in the line, along with calibration mode software.
“This was a great customer to work with for this project,” said Mike Coburn, Technical Sales for AFC-Holcroft. “They fully understood right from the start the environmental and economic benefits of the system.”
Mr. Sivaraman Arjunan Senior Manager Sundram Fasteners Limited Source: LinkedIn
Indian fastener manufacturer Sundram Fasteners Limited will receive a vacuum furnace to heat treat high quality aviation screws.
This will be the second furnace from SECO/WARWICK --- a global heat treat solution provider --- for this manufacturer. The vacuum furnace on order is a compact Vector device that meets the Indian partner’s requirements in the field of fastener heat treatment for use in the aviation industry, particularly for heat treating large loads of manufactured aviation bolts.
“[The] Vector," commented Mr. Sivaraman Arjunan, senior manager at Sundram Fasteners Limited, "will improve and increase the processing capacity of the tempering, hardening and annealing processes, and will improve the process economics, considering energy savings and the graphite chamber efficiency.”
Sundram Fasteners Limited is a world leader in manufacturing precision components for the automotive, energy (windmills) and aviation sectors.
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A manufacturer of saw blades and tool steels will amp up its heat treating capabilities with two floor-standing box furnaces. The new furnaces will be used for stress relieving and tempering large steel castings.
L&L Special Furnace Co., Inc. will deliver the model XLE3648 furnace with an electric vertical door, an alloy hearth, and a complete control system. This model has an effective work zone of 34" x 34" x 44" and will be used for heat treating various tool steels for saw blades. The model FB336, with an effective work zone of 36" x 36" x 72", is fiber-lined and will be used to temper and stress relieve steel castings.
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A manufacturer of machining tools, industrial knives, mulching knives, and chippers has placed an order for a vacuum furnace with 10 bar high-pressure gas quenching. It will be used for tool steel hardening and tempering processes.
The furnace on order, the Vector® -- a furnace from North American SECO/VACUUM and the international SECO/WARWICK -- has been adapted to match the Czech manufacturer's needs: SECO/WARWICK engineers have designed a 600 x 600 x 1800mm work space. The device modification was implemented to fit the long and straight characteristic shape of the workpieces. The unit was also equipped with a directional cooling option to effectively cool down long and thin knives that, a shape that's prone to distortion during the hardening process.
The application for the device required an inverter that enables complete control over temperature at every stage of the hardening process to reduce distortion. Together with the additional option of directional cooling and the convection system, the system design helps to reduce the undesirable distortion significantly.
A European machinery group will receive a vacuum furnace for hardening and tempering processes, and its design has been customized in order to meet the group’s need to harden aviation steel used as landing gear. The heat treatment solution will improve the process economy in European plants and is characterized, in part, by low energy consumption.
Maciej Korecki Vice President of Business for the Vacuum Furnace Segment SECO/WARWICK
To meet this particular application, SECO/WARWICK engineers fitted the Vector® vacuum furnace with a non-standard system for subquenching with liquid nitrogen that enables the required quick cooling down of landing gear components. The solution has also been expanded with a vacuum system designed with a diffusion pump and is equipped with a directional cooling option and convection heating system with a specially designed fan.
“This is already the fourth purchase order for a furnace from this product segment from this customer,” commented Maciej Korecki, VP of Business Segment for Vacuum Heat Treatment Furnaces at SECO/WARWICK, the sister company to North American heat treat supplier SECO/VACUUM. He also added that “The product solves the customer’s problem with the hardening of special aviation steel, significantly increases the capacity of the existing production line of this component, and also improves process parameters, since the current devices used by the customer are not fitted with a subquenching system using liquid nitrogen. It will certainly be one of the unique solutions completed this year.”
From the southeastern U.S., a leading manufacturer of specialty alloys, pipes, tubes and fittings has placed an order for a large gas fired, car bottom furnace that is scheduled for delivery in Q4 2021.
The furnace from L&L Special Furnace Company will be used for normalizing various steels and specialty alloys at temperatures up to 2,200°F (1,200°C). It will also be used to preheat, stress relieve and temper various steels and large pipe fittings.
The L&L model FCG4410 has working dimensions of 48” wide by 48” tall by 120” deep. Uniformity of ±25°F ( 12.5°C) or better is expected throughout the work zone. Complete factory testing and on-site commissioning is included.
The gas fired furnace uses six medium velocity burners that fire over and under the load. The furnace car moves in and out of the unit on supplied railroad type rails. The door is mounted to the car and is motorized with all required stops and clearances. The side seals are pneumatic and seal to the car bottom once the car is inside the furnace. Castable piers provide good support for up to a 10,000 pound load. The furnace is completely insulated with ceramic fiber modules.
The control is a floor-standing NEMA12 panel with fused disconnect at the source. All fusing and interconnections are included. The furnace is controlled by a Eurotherm Nanodac program control with two slave units. Three-zone control is provided to promote uniformity. Overtemperature protection is provided along with a six-input paperless chart recorder and jack panel.
A leader in the “Tool & Dies” sector — voestalpine High Performance Metals Polska -- placed an order for a retort tempering furnace with vacuum purging. The furnace will be used for tempering tool steel after the gas quenching process.
While this is the first opportunity for the company and SECO/WARWICK to cooperate after the global-pandemic-caused crisis, the contract is the result of long-term cooperation between the supplier and voestalpine High Performance Metals Polska Sp. z o.o. (formerly Bohler Uddeholm Polska). A retort tempering furnace with vacuum purging will complete the production line installed in Łomianki near Warsaw. The facility is currently operating the equipment delivered previously from the supplier, including a hardening furnace and a tempering furnace. Another furnace will significantly increase the capacity of the hardening plant.
Cezary Żurada President of the Management Board voestalpine High Performance Metals Polska
“Voestalpine High Performance Metals Polska is a partner whom we’ve known for many years," said Maciej Korecki, VP of the Vacuum Business Segment, SECO/WARWICK Group. "We know their needs, we are able to provide advice and most importantly, customize the equipment to their specific needs. Our relationship is not just superficial — we learn from each other, and thus we know the challenges they face in their day-to-day production."
Vacuum furnaces are perfect for hardening and tempering. They are characterized by the high-quality of processed parts, much lower number of hardening deformations and the absence of batch oxidation which directly translates into significant money savings.
“Our main goal was to increase the capacity. Our machinery park has already included a SECO/WARWICK tempering furnace, which has proved itself perfectly," summarized Cezary Żurada, president of the Management Board of voestalpine High Performance Metals Polska. He continued, "It is worth noting that despite being less demanding, the tempering process usually takes more time than the hardening process. Therefore, in order to be able to make full use of the hardening furnace, for tooling steel we needed two tempering furnaces. Now we will be able to make production more dynamic and conquer new markets."
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