Solar Atmospheres has announced the order of a new 10-bar vacuum furnace for their Greenville, South Carolina, heat treat facility.
This horizontal vacuum furnace (48” wide x 48” high x 96” deep) will be manufactured by sister company Solar Manufacturing. The furnace is capable of processing up to 12,000-pound loads and is scheduled to be installed in late 2024. This new vacuum furnace will feature a vacuum pumping system capable of achieving an ultimate vacuum of 1x10-6 Torr, which is crucial for processing titanium and other high grade alloys. Additionally, this furnace will apply newly developed designs for the uniform and rapid cooling of large workloads.
Steve Prout, president of Solar Atmospheres Southeast, states, “We are proud to be offering our customers another regional option for high pressure quenching of large components and workloads, as well as the opportunity to leverage economies of scale to reduce their cost of thermal processing in the midst of the challenging economic environment we are all facing.”
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Sometimes our editors find items that are not exactly “heat treat” but do deal with interesting developments in one of our key markets: aerospace, automotive, medical, energy, or general manufacturing.
To celebrate getting to the “fringe” of the weekend, Heat Treat Today presents today’sHeat Treat Fringe Friday: an exciting development in Additive Manufacturing with Airbus Helicopters using 3D printing.
Helmut Fárber Site Manager Airbus Helicopters in Donauwöth
Airbus Helicopters is to use 3D printing technology to produce components for its helicopter vehicles and the aircraft of parent company Airbus.
Airbus Helicopters will use TRUMPF‘s 3D printing technology to produce components for its electric-powered City Airbus experimental high-speed Racer helicopter, as well as the Airbus A350 and A320 passenger aircraft, with structural components made of titanium and high-strength aluminum believed to be the focus. The company is investing heavily in additive manufacturing technology because of its ability to reduce weight and, in turn, bring down fuel consumption and costs. It is said to be exploring the part consolidation of some systems, again to save weight, and values the capacity to reuse powder.
“With innovative manufacturing processes, we are working on the helicopters of the future in Donauwörth,” commented Helmut Fárber, site manager at Airbus Helicopters in Donauwöth. “Among other things, 3D printing helps reduce the weight of components.”
Said Richard Bannmueller, CEO of TRUMPF Laser and System Technology, “Additive manufacturing saves expensive raw material and can lower production costs in the aviation industry. 3D printers only use the material that designers actually need for their components and that ends up taking off in the aircraft.”
Airbus, like many other aerospace manufacturers, has had a keen interest in additive manufacturing technology for several years, with the company recently signing a 3.8 million EUR contract with Oerlikon for the additive manufacture of satellite antenna clusters.
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Vacu-Braze recently installed a new water quenching furnace in their Quakertown, PA, facility. This acquisition will allow for the expansion of capabilities to include rapid quenching of specialty aerospace materials such as steels or titanium.
The new furnace from LuciferFurnaces, measuring 45.5”x29.5”x28,” contains argon and nitrogen atmosphere capabilities which allow for processing in a protective atmosphere even at high temperatures while maintaining AMS 2750 compliant uniformity. The pyrometry team at Vacu-Braze was able to achieve Class 2 pyrometry, opening up more available processes such as annealing, austenitizing, normalizing, stress relieving, solution treating, and tempering.
"Lucifer Furnaces was selected for the order," commented Jerry Novak, process engineer at Vacu-Braze, "[as their furnaces] are locally made and could be custom designed for the application. They are built in Eastern Pennsylvania to our desired specifications. Vacu-Braze is always happy to partner with companies that manufacture quality equipment and products in the USA."
The heat treat company also noted that this piece of equipment expands their services to existing clients while providing processes for new clients.
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Solar Atmospheres Souderton, PA incorporated a high-production vacuum furnace with a work zone of 48"x48"x72" and a weight capacity of up to 7,500 lbs/batch. The furnace doubles the facility's hydriding and de-hydriding capacity in the reclamation of titanium and tantalum materials.
A front-loading box furnace delivered to a northeastern U.S. supplier of titanium castings will expand the manufacturer’s aerospace and gas turbine castings heat treat abilities. The company supplies to the aerospace and power generation fields and deals with exotic metals that are ideal for superior products using the lost wax process for castings, such as nickel and cobalt-based alloys.
L&L Special Furnace Co., Inc. Box Furnace Source: L&L Special Furnace Co., Inc.
The L&L Special Furnace Co., Inc. model FB435 has an effective work area of 48” wide by 32” tall by 60” deep and has certifiable temperature uniformity of ±10°F from 500 to 1,850°F. Additionally, the elements are very evenly spaced around the chamber and the furnace is lined with ceramic fiber on the sides and top.
The furnace case is sealed internally for atmosphere control, and an inert blanketing gas such as nitrogen is used to displace oxygen present within the work chamber. This provides a surface finish in which oxidization is less likely to form on the part. The atmosphere is delivered automatically through a flow panel by the furnace control.
Find heat treating products and services when you search on Heat Treat Buyers Guide.com
Solar Atmospheres Souderton, PA incorporated a high-production vacuum furnace with a work zone of 48″x48″x72″ and a weight capacity of up to 7,500 lbs/batch. The furnace doubles the facility’s hydriding and de-hydriding capacity in the reclamation of titanium and tantalum materials.
A global company that produces specialty metals and provides related vacuum heat treating equipment and services recently announced the acquisition of assets of a leading titanium producer based in western Pennsylvania that supplies the aerospace industry.
AMG Advanced Metallurgical Group N.V. finalized the acquisition of the assets of International Specialty Alloys (ISA) from Kennametal Inc. through its operating unit AMG Technologies, which, besides its production of titanium aluminides and titanium master alloys, also designs, engineers, and produces advanced vacuum furnace systems and operates vacuum heat treatment facilities under the ALD Vacuum Technologies brand name, primarily for the transportation and energy industries.
ISA, located in New Castle, Pennsylvania, is a leading U.S. producer of titanium master alloys and other binary alloys for the aerospace market.
“The acquisition of ISA provides an excellent opportunity for AMG Titanium Alloys and Coatings to increase its market position in these key products for the aerospace market in North America and Europe,” stated Guido Loeber, President of AMG Technologies.
A manufacturer of aerostructures for both commercial and defense headquartered in Wichita, Kansas, recently announced it is transitioning recent research breakthroughs—a new process that allows for more advanced production of titanium parts—from the laboratory to its factory.
Spirit AeroSystems developed The Joule Form™ process, a new proprietary method for forming titanium raw material at elevated temperatures in the fabrication of aerospace components. This method provides the company with a competitive advantage in the use of titanium, a highly desirable material thanks to its combination of strength and its light weightedness.
John Pilla, Spirit AeroSystems Senior Vice President and Chief Technology and Quality Officer
“We are the first in the aerospace industry to use this high-tech solution,” said Spirit AeroSystems Senior Vice President and Chief Technology and Quality Officer John Pilla. “The implementation of the Joule FormTM process allows for more advanced production of titanium parts, such as those on Spirit’s propulsion, fuselage and wing products. This approach offers a host of benefits that ultimately reduce costs and drive greater efficiencies.”
The Joule FormTM process allows Spirit to form parts out of titanium plates rather than relying on machining large blocks of titanium, significantly reducing waste and decreasing the amount of machining. The process was internally developed as part of one of Spirit’s key research focus areas, the Lean Metallic Structures Distinctive Capability.
Kevin Matthies, Spirit’s senior vice president of Global Fabrication
“This emerging manufacturing improvement can replace more expensive techniques,” said Kevin Matthies, Spirit’s senior vice president of Global Fabrication. “We want to build high-quality products in a cost-effective way. This is a great example of improving a process to better serve our customers.”
Joule Form™ technology can be used on aircraft components that are machined from plates or forgings, specifically on materials that are hard to machine and expensive to procure (like titanium and steel alloys). Spirit operates sites in the U.S., U.K., France and Malaysia. The company’s core products include fuselages, pylons, nacelles and wing components for the world’s premier aircraft.
Building upon their collaboration begun last year, two aerospace titanium and alloy component suppliers recently concluded successful testing for optimizing alloy for performance.
Norsk Titanium (Norsk), which supplies aerospace-grade, additive manufactured, structural titanium components to Tier 1 client such as Boeing, partnered with QuesTek Innovations LLC and printed the additive manufacturer’s custom titanium wire in support of initial material properties testing.
Norsk’s patented Rapid Plasma Deposition™ (RPD™) process, which transforms titanium wire into complex components suitable for structural and safety-critical applications, is used in the aerospace industry. QuesTek, utilizing Integrated Computational Materials Engineering (ICME), has been involved in projects to resolve materials issues across various alloy systems in additive manufacturing (Al, Mg, Cu, Fe, Co, Ni and Ti) to improve component performance by modifying chemical compositions and optimizing the heat treatments, or designing entirely new alloys.
Carl Johnson, Norsk Titanium, Chief Technology Officer
“QuesTek’s high-performance titanium alloy provides an opportunity for Norsk’s customers to optimize components printed with Norsk Titanium’s RPD™ process and opens doors for new applications,” said Norsk Chief Technology Officer Carl Johnson.
Norsk and QuesTek plan to perform additional testing, while working with aircraft and propulsion manufacturers on the improved business case the new alloy affords.
A leading provider of metal additive manufacturing solutions recently announced that it has entered into an ambitious research and development (R&D) initiative with a metallurgist expert and one of the world leaders in high-performance steels, superalloys, titanium, and aluminum and a multinational aerospace corporation.
Sciaky EBAM®system
The goal of the R&D initiative between Sciaky, Inc., a subsidiary of Phillips Service Industries, Inc.; Aubert & Duval; and Airbus, and piloted by the Saint Exupéry Institute for Research in Technology (IRT) is to couple traditional metallurgy—high-power closed die forging—with emerging wire fed metal 3D printing techniques—in this case, Sciaky’s groundbreaking Electron Beam Additive Manufacturing (EBAM®) process—to develop new processes for manufacturing titanium alloys aircraft parts.
The Production Engineering laboratory of the National School of Engineering in Tarbes, France, will serve as an academic partner for this project, also known as the Metallic Advanced Materials for Aeronautics (MAMA) project.
Scott Phillips, president and CEO of Sciaky, Inc
In this first phase, the project has global funding just under $4.8M (€ 4,2 M) of which 50% are supported by the French State as part of the “Investing in the Future” program (PIA – Programme Investissement d’Avenir), the other 50% being funded by its industrial partners.
“Sciaky is proud to work with the Saint Exupéry IRT, Aubert & Duval, and Airbus on this exciting project,” said Scott Phillips, president and CEO of Sciaky, Inc. “Industrial metal additive manufacturing technology continues to break new ground every day, and Sciaky is committed to keeping EBAM at the forefront of this movement.”
