Arconic

15 Quick Heat Treat News Items to Keep You Current

/ FEATURED NEWS, HEAT TREAT NEWS INDUSTRIES

Heat Treat Today offers News Chatter, a feature highlighting representative moves, transactions, and kudos from around the industry.

Personnel and Company Chatter

  • Roger Smith has recently been appointed Technical Manager at Plibrico Company, LLC.  Smith will be responsible for development of innovative refractory formulas, oversee product quality, and assist in identifying the best materials for refractory construction projects.
  • William “Bill” Cowell has been promoted to the position of Vice President of Operations at Advanced Heat Treat Corp. (AHT). Cowell, who has been at AHT since 1999, will oversee operations for all AHT  facilities.
  • Wirco has announced the promotion of Aaron Fisher to Vice President of our Fabrication Division. Aaron has been with Wirco for 19 years. In addition, Wirco welcomes Marco Möser as the Vice President of our Foundry Division.
  • Thomas G. Gasbarre has stepped down as Chief Executive Officer of Gasbarre Products, Inc, a position he has held since his father George Gasbarre, the founder of the company, retired in 1990. Gasbarre also announced that Tom’s son, Alex Gasbarre, has been appointed Chief Executive Officer and is now leading the development and execution of the company’s short- and long-term strategies. Heath Jenkins has been promoted and will succeed Alex as President, Press & Automation, and Manufacturing Technologies.
  • John C Plant has been appointed to serve as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Arconic Inc. The Board has also appointed Elmer L. Doty, a current Director, to serve as Chief Operating Officer, and Arthur D. Collins, Jr., a current Director, to serve as Lead Director. These appointments are effective immediately.
  • Xerox, based in Norwalk, Connecticut, has acquired metal additive manufacturing company Vader Systems, which will enable it to offer its customers access to low-cost metal additive manufacturing with a greater variety of metals. Based in Buffalo, New York, Vader Systems is a developer of liquid metal additive manufacturing technology.

Equipment Chatter

  • Several convection ovens were supplied to a manufacturer of small medical parts in the southern U.S. by Lucifer Furnaces. Model 42-B18 has a working chamber size of 9”H x 9”W x 18”L and heats to 1200°F.
  • A floor-standing furnace has been shipped by L&L Special Furnace Co., Inc. to a worldwide leader of high tech ceramics and associated components located in the Northeastern United States. The furnace will be used for glass components along with fiber optics and research and development. It will also be used to fill in on various thermal projects and development.
  • A Treet-All™ Box Furnace has been shipped to a Japan-based global battery manufacturing company by Lindberg/MPH.  The maximum temperature rating of this light industrial box furnace is 2050°F and has work chamber dimensions of 18” wide x 36” deep x 18” high. The Treet-All™ Light Industrial Box Furnace is suited for multiple applications, including annealing, ashing, austempering, brazing, preheating, solution treating, stress relieving, and normalizing.
  • A supplier of the aerospace industry received shipment of a Electrically Heated Horizontal Quench Solution Treat System from Wisconsin Oven Corporation. The Horizontal Quench Solution Treat System has a maximum oven operating temperature of 1,200° F and work zone dimensions of 5’4″ wide x 5’6″ long x 5’4″ high (above the rollers).
  • Chromalox, a thermal technology provider, recently contracted with Sierra Monitor Corporation  to enable cloud system connectivity on their Heat Trace solution.
  • A cabinet oven is being used to finish batch loads of metal parts at a customer’s facility. The No. 828 is a 500°F (260°C) cabinet oven from Grieve Corporation.
  • A recycling and melting group has ordered for installation a Twin-Chamber Melting Furnace TCF® from Tenova LOI Thermprocess. Italy-based Fonderie Pandolfo specializes in processing of aluminum, mainly for extrusions. The casted billets are mainly extruded in the extrusion shops of the main European extruders.

Kudos Chatter

  • Buehler, an ITW Company, and ASM International are celebrating 75 of continuous partnership in 2019. Buehler has continuously supported of the ASM World Training Center in Novelty, Ohio, through its innovations for metallography and hardness testing, solutions for the newest materials and participation in ASM International activities.
  • Pennsylvania-based Onex Inc recently completed a forge furnace refractory reline in one week.

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 sectors to the editor at editor@heattreattoday.com.

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Arconic Splits Operations, Expands Hot Mill Capability

/ AUTOMOTIVE HEAT TREAT, AUTOMOTIVE HEAT TREAT NEWS, FEATURED NEWS

Arconic Inc., which specializes in lightweight metals engineering and manufacturing, recently announced plans to separate the company’s portfolio into Engineered Products & Forgings and Global Rolled Products, with a spin-off of one of the businesses. In addition, it will also explore the potential sale of businesses that do not best fit into engineered products & forgings or global rolled products.

The Global Rolled Products segment produces a range of aluminum sheet and plate products for the aerospace, automotive, commercial transportation, brazing, and industrial markets. The Engineered Products and Solutions (EP&S) represents Arconic’s downstream operations and produces products that are used mostly in the aerospace (commercial and defense), commercial transportation, and power generation end markets.

The New York City-based company’s decision to separate its portfolio comes after rejecting a $10 billion offer for the entire company and abruptly replacing its Chief Executive. John Plant, the newly appointed CEO, stated during the company’s 4Q18 conference call that he expects the spin-off would be completed within the next 9 to 15 months.

Arconic has also released investment plans to expand its hot mill capability and add downstream equipment capabilities to manufacture industrial and automotive aluminum products in its Tennessee Operations facility near Knoxville, Tennessee.

Tim Myers.

“This investment will add capacity to meet the growing demand for industrial products and automotive aluminum sheet,” said Tim Myers, President of Arconic’s Global Rolled Products business. “With this expansion, we are further diversifying the portfolio of one of our largest North American facilities.” The industrial market consists of products made with common alloy aluminum sheet, which is used in applications for commercial transportation, appliances, machinery, and construction.

 

 

Photo credit/caption: Bloomberg News / A worker controls a crane to move an aluminum coil at the Arconic Inc. manufacturing facility in Alcoa, Tennessee. 

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PA Metals Manufacturer Begins Production at Expanded Aerospace Parts Facility

/ AEROSPACE HEAT TREAT, AEROSPACE HEAT TREAT NEWS, FEATURED NEWS

 

Source: Light Metal Age

 

Jeremy Halford, president of Arconic Engineered Structures

A lightweight metals engineering and manufacturing company located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, recently opened its expanded aluminum and titanium aerospace parts facility in Bestwig, Germany, almost doubling its titanium parts production capacity and adding state-of-the-art equipment.

Arconic’s expansion will allow the company to meet the demand for lightweight titanium investment castings.

“Combined with our previous investments in Bestwig, this latest expansion is providing additional capacity to deliver even more of the titanium components our customers need to build aircraft at high volumes,” said Jeremy Halford, president of Arconic Engineered Structures.

 

Read more: “Arconic Opens Expanded Aerospace Parts Facility in Germany”

Photo credit: Arconic

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Heat Treating, Metals Projects Included in DOE Program to Advance U.S. Manufacturing

/ ENERGY HEAT TREAT, FEATURED NEWS

 

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) recently announced the selection of 13 projects to stimulate the use of high-performance supercomputers to advance U.S. manufacturing. Heat treating research and development programs are among the finalists.

The Energy Department, in partnership with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, has set aside nearly $3 million in funding for the manufacturing-laboratory partnerships to assist the U.S. in bringing technologies to the market faster and gain a competitive advantage in the global economy.

Included in the list are heat treating or metals production companies with the following planned projects:

  • United Technologies Research Center – This project will develop a novel heat treatment scheme that eliminates deleterious phases from the microstructure additively manufactured aerospace components while reducing the annealing time.
  • SFP Works, LLC – This project will use computational effort to understand phase transformations that occur during the flash heat treating process in order to better control parameters to obtain the desired phase distribution and chemistry.
  • Arconic, Inc – This project will study the thermomechanics of micro-pores during the rolling process of aluminum slabs to improve yield.
  • Steel Manufacturing Simulation and Visualization Consortium – This project will create a shared database of heat exchange in 140 steel reheat furnaces whose inconsistencies lead to significant energy loss.

Selected projects will be awarded up to $300,000 in federal funding to cover the costs associated with using the supercomputers and technical expertise provided by the laboratory partners. Industry partners will provide a participant contribution of at least 20% of the DOE funding for the project.

DOE’s national laboratories have some of the most significant high performance computing (HPC) resources available, including some of the fastest supercomputers in the world. There is great potential for the U.S. manufacturing industry to use the power of HPC to solve key challenges, but many manufacturers lack access to supercomputing resources.

The High-Performance Computing for Manufacturing (HPC4Mfg) program, supported by DOE’s Advanced Manufacturing Office, unites DOE’s supercomputing capabilities and expertise with American manufacturers to optimize production processes and designs, enhance product quality, predict performance and failure, and speed up design and testing cycles while decreasing energy consumption. Manufacturer-laboratory partnerships leverage expertise in advanced modeling, simulation, and data analysis to accelerate innovation and shorten the time of adoption of new technologies in U.S. manufacturing.

The following projects were also selected for awards:

  • 3M – This project will optimize the design of emissive films on building windows for cooling via modeling of glass bead filled polymers.
  • 3M – This project will minimize energy consumption of the fiber spinning manufacturing process using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and machine learning.
  • Alliance for Pulp & Paper Technology – This project will help create a fundamental understanding of alkali reactivity with wood components using molecular modeling.
  • GE Global Research Center – This project will extend GE Global Research Center’s TRUCHAS model to large-scale casting simulation of turbine blades.
  • KeraCel – This project will model a new plan to push energy density in Li batteries with lithium oxide garnet with the goal of lowering the required temperature to reduce porosity in sintering.
  • Seurat Technologies – This project will use the ALE3D software to optimize Seurat’s innovative laser energy flux distribution to reduce spatter during laser powder bed fusion.
  • The Dow Chemical Company – This project will model methods to reduce the thermal conductivity of Dow’s insulating foam polyurethane products while using less polymer in products.
  • Transient Plasma Systems – This project will build a comprehensive numerical model for use in understanding and optimizing key parameters in electrical pulse generation of plasmas for dilute burn combustion.
  • VAST Power Systems, Inc. – This project will optimize gas turbine combustors by developing and validating surrogate models using CFD.

Read more about the individual projects on Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s High-Performance Computing for Manufacturing website and at the Department of Energy’s website.

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Arconic Divests, Hydro Acquires Latin American Extrusions Plants

/ MANUFACTURING HEAT TREAT, MANUFACTURING HEAT TREAT NEWS
Svein Richard Brandtzæg, president and CEO

Lightweight metals engineering and manufacturing firm Arconic, headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, recently announced that a global integrated aluminum solutions company will acquire its Latin American extrusions business, located in Brazil, part of the company’s transportation and construction solutions segment.

Hydro Extruded Solutions AS, formerly Sapa, which produces extruded shapes (standard and custom), seamless and structural pipe & tube, and standard and specialty rod and bar, noted in a company release that the transaction will expand its capacity to provide solutions for its manufacturing sectors in Brazil. Arconic is divesting two extrusion plants in Utinga and Tubarão in southern Brazil as part of its strategy to streamline assets and production; the assets include one casthouse, seven extrusion presses ranging from 7 to 14 inches, and value-added capabilities.

“We believe in the integrated business model and Brazil is the country where Hydro’s entire value chain is present. From bauxite and alumina, via primary production to extruded solutions, this will strengthen our ability to serve our customers,” said Svein Richard Brandtzæg, president and CEO.

Completion of the transaction is subject to approval from relevant competition authorities in Brazil and is expected within the first half of 2018.

 

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Aerospace Supplier’s Horizontal Heat Treat Capacity Expands to Meet Demand for Thick Aluminum Plate

/ AEROSPACE HEAT TREAT, AEROSPACE HEAT TREAT NEWS, FEATURED NEWS

Lightweight metals engineering and manufacturing firm Arconic Inc. announced last week plans to install a new horizontal heat treat furnace at its Davenport Works facility in Iowa, part of a significant capital investment to extend its processing capacity for aerospace and industrial applications.

Tim Myers, president of Global Rolled Products and Transportation, and Construction Solutions, Arconic, Inc

This new furnace will enable Arconic to heat treat longer and thicker plate, including material for the company’s recently installed thick plate stretcher which meets a global need for thick aluminum plate, particularly as aerospace demand for composite wings, made with monolithic thick-plate wing ribs, increases.

“This investment will help meet both existing and future customer demand,” said Tim Myers, President, Global Rolled Products and Transportation and Construction Solutions. “With this new capability, we will meet increasing demand for plate used for aircraft wing ribs, skins, and other structural components, particularly in single-aisle builds. It also opens the door to growth in other markets, such as semi-conductors for consumer electronics and injection molding for automotive applications.”

Construction on the project is expected to begin late this year with commercial production expected to start in 2019.

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Aerospace and Industrial Sectors to Benefit from Stretcher

/ AEROSPACE HEAT TREAT, FEATURED NEWS

A new manufacturing technology – the Very Thick Plate Stretcher developed by Arconic– is complete. The Stretcher produces highly-differentiated aerospace and industrial plate. The investment in the Stretcher is backed by customer contracts, including one with Airbus, valued at approximately $1 billion. The project was completed on time with an investment of approximately $150 million, approximately $40 million under budget.

Located at the company’s facility in Davenport, Iowa, the Stretcher improves the performance of thick aluminum and aluminum-lithium plate in aerospace and industrial applications. The stretching process reduces stress introduced into the plate as part of the manufacturing process, resulting in a part that is more easily machined and processed by customers.

In aerospace, the Stretcher will not only enable Arconic to service the existing plate market, but also allow airframe builders to make large wing ribs, fuselage frames and bulkheads in new sizes and thickness. For example, one of the challenges composite wings face as they get larger is strength and stiffness, and the aluminum plate from this Stretcher will allow aircraft manufacturers to make aluminum wing ribs to address that issue. In the industrial market, plate from the Stretcher can be used in manufacturing molds and chambers for applications such as semiconductors.

“This investment was made to expand Arconic’s leadership in the aerospace market and create profitable growth in attractive industrial markets,” said Arconic Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Klaus Kleinfeld. “The Stretcher allows Arconic to offer a variety of new products: in aerospace, we can now help aircraft engineers push the boundaries of design and performance. In other industrial applications, such as semiconductors and consumer electronics, Stretcher material helps increase productivity and reduce cost. In both cases, Arconic will help create demand that we are uniquely positioned to meet. And making all of this possible is our team in Davenport, who delivered this massive project on time and $40 million under budget.”

Arconic’s Davenport facility is currently commissioning the Stretcher, and has begun qualifying material for its customers.

Aerospace Applications

In aerospace, the Stretcher material offers Arconic customers more design freedom and increased productivity. In addition to enabling the production of the largest high-strength monolithic wing ribs in the industry, the material from the Stretcher will also allow aerospace engineers to design aircraft in new ways, because plate of this size and scale is currently not available on the market. For example, Arconic’s Stretcher material allows airframers to create single-piece parts, which eliminates the need to join multiple pieces together, resulting in better production efficiency and lower weight.

Product shipments to aerospace customers are expected to begin in the fourth quarter of 2017.

Airbus was the first aerospace customer to include material from the new Stretcher in the $1 billion contract announced last year. Stretcher material is also a part of an agreement Arconic has with AMI Metals to support their contract with Lockheed Martin for production of the Joint Strike Fighter.

Industrial Applications

The Stretcher can be used to make some of the thickest, longest and widest plate for plastics manufacturing molds and on manufacturing chambers for the consumer electronics and semiconductor industries. For example, semiconductor manufacturers can use the thicker plate to increase the size of their manufacturing chambers, allowing them to make larger and/or more chips in the same amount of time, increasing productivity and saving cost.

Product shipments to industrial customers are expected to begin in the second quarter of 2017.

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Arconic Announces Multi-Year Deal with Toyota

/ AUTOMOTIVE HEAT TREAT, FEATURED NEWS

Global technology, engineering and advanced manufacturing leader Arconic announced a multi-year supply deal with Toyota North America. Arconic is supplying aluminum to Toyota for its all-new Lexus RX. The vehicle debuted last year and became Toyota’s first vehicle in North America to prominently feature aluminum exterior panels.

“Automakers worldwide are turning to aluminum for the stronger, tougher, higher performing vehicles that consumers demand,” said Mark Vrablec, President of Arconic’s Aerospace & Automotive Products business. “Many bestselling vehicles in America have already converted to aluminum for improved performance, including better fuel efficiency, more towing and payload capacity, and improved vehicle safety scores. This trend will continue. We are proud to expand our relationship with Toyota.”

This makes Arconic the sole aluminum sheet supplier to Toyota for the Lexus RX, named by Consumer Reports as the Best Luxury SUV of 2016.

The Arconic and Toyota deal draws on the strong automotive expertise and manufacturing capability of Arconic’s Global Rolled Products business. Arconic will supply Toyota from its plants in Davenport, Iowa, and Danville, Illinois.

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