Stephen Harris
Group Chief Executive
Bodycote
Source: LinkedIn
Bodycote has announced its acquisition of Lake City Heat Treating, based in Warsaw, Indiana, which was successfully completed on January 19, 2024. The midwestern heat treater is a leading medical market provider of hot isostatic pressing (HIP) and vacuum heat treatment services, primarily supplying the orthopedic implant market as well as civil aerospace.
Stephen Harris, group chief executive of Bodycote plc, commented: "This acquisition is an excellent fit, and it allows us to better address the growth opportunities in the medical and aerospace markets." With this acquisition, the heat treater will increase their range of specialist thermal processing and heat treatment solutions available to these industries.
Lake City Heat Treating is forecast to have achieved 2023 full year revenues of around $14m (£11m). The business revenue grew 30% in 2023 and looking ahead is expected to continue to deliver good progress.
Their constant growth reflects the high-quality business that has successfully gained share among distinguished medical and aerospace OEMs. The acquisition fits with Bodycote’s strategy to grow its Specialist Technologies businesses.
This Bodycote press release can be found in its original form here.
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An international electric vehicle manufacturer has selected a heat treat furnace supplier with North American locations for a second nitriding furnace to operate in parallel with an existing one.
The car maker already purchased an identical SECO/VACUUM nitriding furnace last year. The added heat treating capacity will ensure that the nitriding step does not become a bottle-neck in the plant’s high-pressure die casting tooling production process.
The retort furnace for gas nitriding has a chamber size of 1.6m (63”) diameter and 2.8m (110”) depth, accommodating a load up to 1m x 1m x 2.6m (40” x 40” x 100”). The furnace has 350 kilowatts of heating capacity divided into 3 heating zones. The durable Inconel 600 retort will offer many years of trouble-free service.
Peter Zawistowski
Managing Director
SECO/VACUUM Technologies
Source: SECO/VACUUM
Peter Zawistowski, managing director of SECO/VACUUM, said of the project, “This heat treat partner’s dies present quite a unique heat treating challenge. At SECO/VACUUM we love a good challenge, so we have built this solution with the dimensions and thermal capacity to nitride these large, heavy parts to exceed customer’s specifications”.
The nitriding furnace is also fitted with a device called a thermal oxidizer. Although the all-electric heat-treating process does not involve any combustion, the combination of ammonia and high temperatures still creates NOx emissions. The thermal oxidizer breaks down the harmful NOx molecules in the furnace discharge.
The tool and die market serving traditional and EV automotive markets uses vacuum heat treating technology extensively to produce bright, high-quality parts.
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A precision heat treatment company Vacu Braze recently partnered with a U.S. furnace manufacturer to procure new equipment to expand its processing capabilities.
The TM8 is the first high-pressure gas quenching furnace to be installed in Vacu Braze’s clean processing room. This high-purity furnace from TM Vacuum Productsexpands the heat treater’s high-pressure gas quenching capacity for large and small jobs, while offering increased processing cleanliness.
The TM8 is equipped with a molybdenum all-metal hot zone and a cryogenic pump capable of helping the furnace reach the 10-7 vacuum scale. With a qualified work zone of 12” x 12” x 24”, small batches of parts made from a wider array of materials can be processed more quickly than with traditional atmospheric methods.
The new furnace is fully compliant with AMS 2750 class 2 pyrometry and fit for processing critical parts for aerospace applications. As clean processing capabilities expand, Vacu Braze is proud to provide innovative solutions to industries requiring precision, purity, and cleanliness from their heat treatment provider.
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A technology research institute has chosen a heat treat vacuum furnace which will support research and development in the fields of materials engineering and machine construction and operation.
SECO/WARWICK will supply a Vector® vacuum furnace with high-pressure gas hardening and will include options for vacuum carburizing, pre-nitriding for carburizing technology, low-pressure nitriding (LPN), and low-pressure carbonitriding (LPCN).
This configuration provides precision performance in vacuum, ensuring steel detail surfaces are protected, and the ability to carry out hardening processes through the use of high cooling gas pressures (15 bar).
The small vacuum furnace will have a working space of 400x400x600 mm. With a round heating chamber, the furnace, despite its small size, can be used to test and perform research on many sizes of parts including work with large dimensions.
Says Sławomir Woźniak, CEO of the SECO/WARWICK Group, "We cooperate with scientific institutions all over the world because we are aware that industry development depends on their work. Many groundbreaking discoveries have already been made, but I am sure that many more are yet to come."
The R&D institute deals with methods of refining metal products by increasing their corrosion resistance and increasing mechanical properties, especially fatigue strength and resistance to wear in friction processes. The technological institute strives to disseminate and apply in practice the results of scientific research and development work, develops new technologies, and conducts service activities.
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Solar Manufacturing has received a patent for an improved vacuum furnace control thermocouple design. The new thermocouple design offers an advantage when controlling at operating temperatures from ambient up to 1200°F (649°C) especially in smaller diameter hot zones of 36” (91.44 cm) or less.
William Jones CEO and Founder/Owner, Solar Atmospheres
The new thermocouple configuration was developed to lessen the undesirable thermal conduction losses of the thermocouple assembly. This thermocouple design has also demonstrated to improve temperature uniformity survey results. To satisfy AMS 2750 standard temperature uniformity specifications, it is critical to have the control thermocouples in the proper location of the hot zone for satisfactory survey thermocouple measurements without correction factors.
The patent inventor is William R. Jones, owner of Solar Manufacturing, Inc.
Under these conditions, the outer ceramic protection tube of the conventional control thermocouple design acts as a heat sink. This thermal conduction, or the heat loss, is compounded by the shorter length of the thermocouple assembly and causes the control thermocouple to operate at a lower temperature, thus increasing the power output to the furnace heating elements to maintain set-point temperature. The result is the workload temperature hotter than the furnace temperature. The phenomenon is more pronounced at lower processing temperatures (<1200°F/649°C).
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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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Solar Atmospheresof Michigan has begun the relocation of the first of eight existing vacuum furnaces from the old Vac-Met premises.
The first vacuum furnace (38” wide by 28” high by 72” deep), decommissioned from the Fraser Michigan plant, will be fully operational this week in the Chesterfield, Michigan, facility.
The migration of the next seven vacuum furnaces and other ancillary equipment, originating from both the Fraser, MI, and Warren, MI, plants, will occur every two weeks. By the end of 2023, the transferred assets will join the new existing Solar vacuum furnaces to form a new state of the art vacuum thermal treating facility in Michigan.
Robert (Bob) Hill, president of Solar Atmospheres of Michigan, comments, “To have all of our operations under one roof is a massive step for our employees and our company. Ownership of the vacant lot next to us gives the opportunity to grow the business more efficiently in one location. We are excited to get through this transition phase and look forward to 2024 and beyond!”
To view a video of the relocation process, see here.
Heat TreatToday is partnering with two international publications: heat processing, a Vulkan-Verlag GmbH publication that serves mostly the European and Asian heat treat markets, and Furnaces International, a Quartz Business Media publication that primarily serves the English-speaking globe. Through these partnerships, we are sharing the latest news, tech tips, and cutting-edge articles that will serve our audience — manufacturers with in-house heat treat.
In this article, all eyes are on CO2 and hydrogen.
RATH Limiting CO2 Emissions with Furnace Operations
At the RATH plant in Krummnußbaum, Lower Austria, two new vacuum nitriding furnaces are being operated. (Source: heat processing)
“[Two] new vacuum nitriding furnaces, used exclusively for the production of silicon carbide plates and bricks in a nitrogen atmosphere, are now being operated with electricity. The result: CO2 emissions are around 70% lower than with the previous gas-fi red furnace, and fossil fuels are reduced to a minimum.”
Bigger, Greener, and Employee-Centered Growth in France
Pfeiffer Vacuum Technology AG announced in May 2023 a seven-year, €75 million investment plan for its Annecy site. (Source: heat processing)
“Our investment plan will serve to modernize and digitalize our production in order to continue our growth. We want to double the operations of our French subsidiary with a sales target of €600 million by 2030 and create 100 to 150 additional jobs,’ emphasized Dr. Britta Giesen, CEO of Pfeiffer Vacuum. During the same period, the Group intends to accelerate its course to reduce its CO2 emissions in Scope 1 and 2 to net zero by 2030.”
£4.6m Grant Assistance for Novelis To Establish Hydrogen
Burning Trials
With the recently awarded grant by the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero, Novelis’ Latchford plant will test the use of hydrogen on one of its recycling furnaces in a demonstration phase in 2024.
(Source: Furnaces International)
“Depending on the final configuration, replacing natural gas with hydrogen to feed the remelting furnace could reduce CO2 eq emissions by up to 90% compared to using the same amount of natural gas.”
Fives and Hydro Successful Batch of Hydrogen-Fueled Recycled Aluminum
Green hydrogen is one of the most promising emission-free fuels to address the environmental challenges of heavy polluting industries, including aluminium.
(Source: Furnaces International)
"The test in Hydro Extrusion’s plant is the world’s first on an industrial scale. The natural gas was successfully replaced with green hydrogen in the recycling of aluminium, a key step towards decarbonization of Industry.”
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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FPM Heat Treating has placed an order for a vacuum furnace. The HFL-7472-2IQ vacuum furnace features a graphite insulated hot zone of 48” x 48” x 72” with a 5,000 pound weight capacity, and the SolarVac® Polaris Controls.
The furnace fromSolar Manufacturing is equipped with features for temperature control, uniformity, and rapid heating and cooling cycles, which are crucial for achieving superior metallurgical results. “We are thrilled to integrate this advanced vacuum furnace into our operations,” said Bob Ferry, VP of Engineering and Quality at FPM Heat Treating. “This acquisition is a testament to our unwavering commitment to excellence and our dedication to providing our clients with superior quality and precision in every project.”
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