automation

Digitalization Propels Heat Treating to Industry of the Future

January 7, 2025 / CONTROLS TECHNICAL CONTENT, INSTRUMENTATION TECHNICAL CONTENT, Manufacturing Heat Treat Technical Content, TECHNOLOGY

If you work in a standards-driven industry, you may already feel the imperative of digitalization. In today’s Technical Tuesday, Mike Loepke, head of Nitrex Software & Digitalization, posits how, even if you aren’t necessitated to track compliance digitally, you are probably looking to synthesize and leverage the strengths of multiple advanced operations — furnace and process record-keeping, knowledge of furnace past operations, juggling different new equipment capabilities — across just one platform. In other words, you are looking to bring digitalization system management to your operations.

This informative piece was first released in Heat Treat Today’s December 2024 Medical & Energy Heat Treat print edition.

The Future of Heat Treatment Relies on Digitalization

The ultimate goal for heat treaters, whether commercial or captive, is to uphold the quality of their product and meet client expectations while remaining profitable. Digitalization supports these efforts as it synthesizes and presents detailed, transparent, and accessible data that allows heat treaters to better manage their equipment, processes, and product quality. In addition, the collection of detailed information can serve as a database of knowledge to be used by the next generation of heat treaters, supporting future viability and advancement in the field.

There are necessary steps to take to establish a digital solution and essential components to look for when choosing a software platform that assists heat treaters in optimizing equipment and processes, effectively creating the digitalization of the heat treat operations. Let’s explore these now.

How Digitalization Optimizes Heat Treatment Processes

Digitalization in the heat treatment industry relies on the integration of industrial internet of things (IIoT) technologies with traditional and modern heat treatment processes. Using enabling devices such as sensors, modern connectivity methods, analytics, machine learning, and IIoT software platforms, it is possible for heat treaters to collect and process data that, after analysis, drives informed decisions to optimize equipment, processes, and product quality. To put a finer point on it, digitalization occurs when a manufacturing system is digitally integrated to capture and preserve human experience and knowledge, forming a holistic virtual representation of heat treat operations.

Figure 1. QMULUS Shop Layout enables visual inspection of the current production status, the location of goods and parts, as well as the real-time status of assets and their ongoing processes.
Source: Nitrex

While digitalization varies from industry to industry and plant to plant, there are some common ways in which heat treaters can employ digital technologies to build such a system. Firstly, digitally integrated solutions can optimize process management and control. For example, when a sensor detects a temperature anomaly during a heat treatment process, the integrated software platform picks up that reading, analyzes it in real time, recognizes it as an error based on historical data or programmed parameters, and alerts the operator.

This integration also facilitates predictive, condition-based maintenance. For example, if collected data and analysis suggests that a furnace is behaving abnormally, the system can automatically generate a work order along with a list of potential failure causes, so that a technician can troubleshoot, identify, and correct small issues — such as a failing thermocouple — before they impact quality or result in equipment failure. By addressing these proactively, heat treaters can avoid extended periods of costly unplanned downtime and ensure continuous operation.

Secondly, artificial intelligence through machine learning plays a crucial role in optimizing quality control in a digitalized system. By analyzing data collected during heat treating processes, it learns to detect patterns and identify anomalies. As in the examples above, this capability enables the system to identify deviations from the desired outcomes, allowing heat treaters to quickly rectify any issues before they impact quality.

Figure 2. The heart of the IIoT data platform needs to be thoughtfully planned and designed. Illustrated are 5 steps to follow to ensure the cloud data system properly engages with the data generated from your specific heat treat operations, ultimately delivering actionable insights. Step 1 depicts the various data sources; Step 2 shows the data transformation, integration, and processing stages; Step 3 highlights the central QMULUS database where data is indexed and organized; and Steps 4 and 5 demonstrate how data is further processed, distributed, and accessed by different end-users.
Source: Nitrex

Thirdly, algorithms can be programmed into a comprehensive management system to identify the most energy-efficient operating conditions for the heat treating process, helping heat treaters reduce their carbon footprint, minimize energy costs, and comply with sustainability goals.

In addition to these types of operational advantages, digitalization technologies can also be used to create a database of knowledge before experienced operators and experts leave the workforce. Traditionally, a handful of experts in the plant oversee the furnaces and equipment and understand how to best control and maintain them based on experience. However, passing down this knowledge to the next generation of heat treaters can take years, which may not be possible due to a company’s workflow demands and cost pressures. Digitalization addresses this challenge by creating a streamlined and accessible database of knowledge, offering less experienced operators and technicians immediate access to detailed information about what may be happening in the equipment or process for an issue at hand. This ensures that essential insights are not lost and enables quicker problem-solving and decision-making on the shop floor.

Making the Digitalization Transformation

While digitalization presents obvious advantages, the heat treatment industry, often conservative in its approach to technology, has some initial work and investment required before realizing the full benefits.

Going “paperless” in order to unlock the full potential of the available data is an important first step. All reports, histories, drawings, and other paperwork associated with equipment, processes, maintenance activities, product quality, and other relevant information should be digitized to provide a comprehensive view of both historical and current data.

Connectivity and integration between machine and higher-level systems are essential for effective data acquisition, monitoring, and remote control. SCADA systems, Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES), and other higher-level systems are rich sources of machine and process data. Gathering and analyzing this data can provide actionable insights that operators can use to make smarter decisions about the control and maintenance of equipment and processes.

Figure 3. A comprehensive overview displays all detected control loop anomalies, indicating possible root causes as well as recommended actions. Incorporating feedback from the responsible maintenance personnel further improves accuracy and delivers more effective recommendations for future occurrences.
Source: Nitrex

Finally, just having data is not enough. The data must be accessible, transparent, and relevant to be valuable. Achieving a complete picture of all the collected data, known as data consolidation, is necessary.

To build an IIoT platform with a well-architectured data engine, heat treaters should begin by identifying and understanding the different sources of data provided by sensors and high-level systems. This involves integrating the data through interfaces adapted to the data type and source, as well as documenting the integrated data sources, data fields, and data streams. Next, a “data lake” should be created to store the collected raw data. From this foundation, a data warehouse can be established to store enriched or analyzed data, derived values, data models, and forecasts in an organized way. For heat treaters, this type of contextualized data might be grouped by parts, loads, or orders.

Once the data engine is in place, the information stored in the data warehouse must be presented in a way that makes sense to operators and technicians for them to make informed decisions for heat treatment processes. To facilitate this, a universal data interface should be considered.

Building from this well-architectured data engine, the IIoT platform can then be expanded with statistical analytics, remote monitoring, KPI tracking, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and other applications to optimize processes and increase profitability.

What Heat Treaters Need in a Digitalization Solution

Harnessing modern technologies tomake digitalization a reality presents heat treaters with the opportunity to implement a solution based on a complete and well documented data system. It also means that the solution creates a holistic solution to data analysis, interpretation, reporting, and action that supports the real-world actions of heat treaters on the plant floor and in the office.

For this reason, a digitalization solution that has cloud and on-premises allows real-time access to analysis and alert messages for operators on the floor as well as managers who are away from the plant, ensuring quick problem-solving and maximum uptime in the event of process or machine issues.

Additionally, heat treaters should look for a solution that offers the freedom to integrate all the various platforms and equipment from which data are gathered from. These may include relevant machinery and production data from the shop floor as well as third-party and custom controllers. This flexibility to synthesize information from multiple sources will ensure the digitalization efforts lead to a comprehensive solution with actionable process overviews, recipe control, batch tracking, and other customization options.

To further this intent of a holistic solution, heat treaters should consider various data capabilities with different portal views, such as a manufacturer portal, a plant portal, and a client portal. However, considering the historic value of a comprehensive software solution, it may be worthwhile to consider how each user could transfer direct feedback and add new rules into the system, creating a repository of knowledge that bridges the knowledge of outgoing generations to future heat treaters.

Finally, any platform that directs the digitalization of a plant must prioritize robust security measures. Several features to look for are:

enhanced encryption standards to keep data confidential and tamper-proof during transmission and storage;
secure protocols based on industry best practices to safeguard data integrity;
a granular access control system (ACS) to allow IT administrators to define and manage user permissions of authorized personnel, thereby minimizing the risk of data breaches and unauthorized data manipulation; and
intrusion detection and prevention systems to continuously monitor network and system activities, enabling instant identification and mitigation of suspicious behavior. This serves as an additional layer of defense against potential cyber threats.

Beyond the software setup, be sure to use best practices by conducting regular security audits to assess the platform’s vulnerabilities and ensure compliance with evolving cybersecurity standards. While digitalization of heat treat operations may seem like a task for the next generation to complete, secure software options that integrate the hard work of digitizing plant activities can make this endeavor just a step away.

About the Author:

Mike Loepke
Head of Nitrex Software & Digitalization
Nitrex

Drawing from a background in Mathematics and Physics, coupled with extensive R&D experience and metallurgical modeling, Mike Loepke specializes in AI and process prediction. He has led Nitrex’s initiative in developing QMULUS, a pioneering IIoT cloud-based platform. Mike’s relentless pursuit of knowledge keeps him at the forefront of evolving technology.

For more information: Contact Mike at mike.loepke@nitrex.com.

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Automating the Brinell Hardness Tester In-House

February 13, 2024 / FEATURED NEWS, HARDNESS TESTERS TECHNICAL CONTENT, MANUFACTURING HEAT TREAT

Automating Brinell hardness testing could mean saving on expensive laboratories, as was the case for one oil tool industry manufacturer. Learn the basics of Brinell hardness testing, its strengths and weaknesses, and options for automation.

This Technical Tuesday article, written by Alex Austin, managing director of Foundrax Engineering Products Ltd., was originally published in Heat Treat Today’s December 2023 Medical and Energy Heat Treat print edition, both in English and in Spanish.

Brinell Hardness Testing: Strengths and Weaknesses

Alex Austin, Managing Director, Foundrax Engineering Products Ltd.

In many steelworks producing large forgings and billets, in numerous heat treatment companies, and near many factory lines producing components for safety-critical applications, you’ll find a Brinell hardness tester. These machines have been used all over the world for more than a century (the test was first demonstrated by its inventor, the Swedish metallurgist August Brinell, in 1900), determining metal hardness by means of a tungsten carbide indenter ball that leaves a dish-shaped indentation in the surface of the test material.

Figure 1. Brinell equation (Source: Foundrax Engineering Products Ltd.)

In the test, the material sample is placed on a rigid anvil, and the indenter descends onto it under loads ranging from 1 kg up to 3,000 kg, depending on the material. Indenters vary in diameter from 1 mm to 10 mm. Most tests use a 3,000 kg load and a 10 mm ball, and the standards always refer to this as “HBW 10/3000.” HBW stands for Hardness Brinell Wolfram, Wolfram being another name for the tungsten carbide the indenter ball is made from. After the (approximately) fifteen second indenting cycle, the indentation is measured across both its x and y axes, as a minimum, by a special calibrated microscope. The mean of the diameter readings is then fed into the Brinell equation.

Naturally, most technicians would rather not use that equation, so they look the indentation diameter up on a chart and “read across” to the derived hardness.

The great advantage of the Brinell test, when considered alongside other metal hardness testing methods, is that the large indentation diameter (typically between 2.4 mm and 6 mm) means the test result is generally unaffected by the grain structure of the metal. It also means that the surface of the test sample can be adequately prepared in just a few seconds with an angle grinder. For these reasons, the test is regarded by many as the “default” one for rough-surfaced and/or coarse-grained samples.

On the block in image (Figure 4), the distortion around the indentations can be seen very clearly.

That seems pretty simple, but there are inherent weaknesses in the Brinell test: measuring the indentation. In our previous article (read it in Heat Treat Today’s August 2023 Automotive Heat Treat print edition), we used this image (Figure 2) to illustrate how difficult it could be to work out exactly where an indentation edge begins and ends.

You might look at Figure 2 and think, “I’m pretty confident about where that indentation edge is,” but it’s trickier than it looks, because the process of indenting doesn’t just push material downwards; it also spreads it sideways, and you get a “pile up” around the rim of the indentation. The pile up may be difficult to see on hard material, or there may be a subtle “lip” inside the pile up that represents the true edge, but considered in cross-section, indentations look roughly like this simple sketch above (Figure 3).

Figure 2. Measurement of Brinell hardness test indentation (Source: Foundrax Engineering Products Ltd.)

Figure 3. Sketch of cross-section of indentation (Source: Foundrax Engineering Products Ltd.)

The overhead light illuminates the “pile up” rim very clearly on some of those indentations as a highlight around the edge. Where, exactly, does the pile up end and the true edge of the indentation begin? Bear in mind that 0.2 mm can equal 20 hardness points. You could show an indentation to three experienced workshop technicians and receive three different answers to the diameter question, and this problem has been a challenge of the Brinell test from its inception. Special blocks are available for training technicians in measurement, but the problem of operator interpretation was such that, in some quarters, the Brinell test was regarded as a bit “rough and ready.” “Ok for the workshop but not for the lab,” was perhaps how it was once seen.

Why Automate the Brinell?

The first question to consider when looking at the automation of the Brinell test is the measurement system because this is the inherent weakness. There are, of course, applications where only narrow tolerances are acceptable, and disagreements can arise between customers and suppliers.

Over the years, certain manufacturers, who mill heat treated materials for the oil tool industry, confided to us that they were regularly using expensive testing laboratories because of clients disputing the hardness figures of their products. They had previously been using manual microscopes. Obviously, this has reputational, as well as financial, consequences. If a manual microscope is employed on raw materials at the goods-in-process stage and there’s an error reading the hardness, you could find at final machining that you have put a lot of time and effort into a part that, in the end, is too hard or soft for the intended application.

Manually manipulating the microscope may not be worth the effort, especially when even a diligent operator may read the result incorrectly. With an automatic Brinell microscope, however, there is the possibility of major time and cost savings.

4 Levels of Automation

#1 Beginnings of Brinell Automation

The first step in automating Brinell hardness testing began 40 years ago when the world’s first automatic measurement microscope hit the market. The system, still being regularly refined, was able to measure the diameter of the indentation across over 100 axes, calculate the mean, and determine the hardness in a split second. It can handle most surface irregularity, operate in poor lighting, and warns operators of unacceptable surface preparation. Additionally, its precision adjusts for spatial error when lining up with a graticule. Within a few years of launch, a major oil tool manufacturer’s quality chief recommended its use to his suppliers, and user uptake was rapid.

#2 Integrated Microscope Model

A further step in automation is to dispense with operator handling of the microscope entirely by the acquisition of a tester with an integrated microscope. The microscope mentioned above, for example, is a feature on several hardness testing machines. The heavy-duty indenter holder pivots away from its normal line of thrust at the end of the indenting cycle, allowing a supra-mounted camera to view the indentation. This is hugely advantageous: no separate apparatus near the test machine, reduced handling time, and thus, much faster testing overall. Results from such machines are displayed next to the control panel and quickly uploadable to company quality systems.

Figure 4. Block with distortion around indentations (Source: Foundrax Engineering Products Ltd.)

#3 Dispensing of Manual Operations

Another automation option is to dispense with a hand-cranked anvil capstan and purchase a tester with a fixed anvil and movable test head. The technician is not required to manually raise and lower the anvil to allow for variations in the size of sample. Instead, the test head automatically “takes up” the space and also clamps the test piece very securely in place during the test cycle.

#4 Incorporate Custom Hardness Tester in Production Line

The fourth, and obviously most dramatic, automation step to consider is incorporating a custom-designed hardness tester into the production line. In some industries, this is essential. Large billets and forgings can’t be lifted into the jaws of a benchtop or floor-standing Brinell tester; so, for highly accurate testing of such items, a larger machine is required (Figure 5).

Figure 5. A custom-designed production line hardness tester. This machine is now in Texas. (Source: Foundrax Engineering Products Ltd.)

The whole gantry moves on one axis of travel while the test head moves perpendicular to that and, of course, up and down. This provides the full x, y, z movement. Large samples are maneuvered on and off by crane. The test head assembly incorporates the automatic microscope and results are displayed on a screen beside the control panel. Test results can be instantly uploaded to factory quality systems. The head assembly can also incorporate a milling tool for surface preparation!

With any decision to purchase plant and machinery equipment, some form of cost-benefit analysis is worthwhile. Clearly, if you’re doing a significant amount of business annually with a customer who is threatening to cease contracting with you because your hardness measurements are wrong too often, then the decision to buy an automatic microscope is not a difficult one. If staff are on overtime because mandatory hardness testing is adding too much time to production schedules, then a heavy-duty production machine with automatic microscope, movable test head, and sample clamp will pay for itself easily.

One thing is certain: Every automation option in Brinell testing increases accuracy and saves time.

About the Author

Alex Austin has been the managing director of Foundrax Engineering Products Ltd. since 2002. Foundrax has supplied Brinell hardness testing equipment for 60+ years and is the only company in the world to truly specialize in this field. Alex sits on the ISE/101/05 Indentation Hardness Testing Committee at the British Standards Institution. He has been part of the British delegation to the International Standards Organization advising on the development of the standard ISO 6506 “Metallic materials – Brinell hardness test” and is the chairman and convenor for the current ISO revision of the standard.

For more information: Visit www.foundrax.co.uk

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