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Best of the Web: Precise Control of Protective Atmospheres

Source: Super Systems, Inc.

Achieving the elimination of oxidation during thermal treatment has driven heat treaters for decades and resulted in a wide variety of approaches. The obvious method is to flow an inert gas such as nitrogen into the furnace in order to drive out both air and moisture. By itself, however, this technique is inadequate.

The zirconia carbon sensor has been used for nearly three decades to control the carbon potential in many carburizing applications. Today’s best of the web article examines the use of the zirconia carbon sensor in a variety of annealing and special treatment applications and considers how the sensor millivolt output is preferred because it relates directly (not empirically) to the free oxygen concentration in the surrounding environment.

An Excerpt:

“While it is desirable to avoid oxidation during thermal treatment, the achievement of adequate control using one of the ‘getter’ gases requires that the sensor millivolts achieved be established at some value higher than the vee formed by the iron reaction at temperatures below 1375ºF and the carbon reaction above that temperature. The vee will demonstrate the lower limit, but the practical level should be established by evaluation of product quality, getter cost and possible sooting. The appropriate level will be limited by such things as furnace leaks, atmosphere agitation, work porosity, time of treatment, etc.”

Read the entire article from Super Systems, Inc., by clicking here: “Precise Control of Protective Atmospheres


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Humidity Got You (and Your Furnace) Down?

Source: Ipsen

Here in the northern hemisphere, the dog days of summer are upon us. This folksy phrase has come to signify the months when humidity weighs heavily in the air, but it’s got a lot more history to it than that. According to the ancients of Rome and Greece, the dog days not only brought drought and heat but also caused man and his best friend to go mad. Madness may not be the result of seasonal humidity, but manufacturing disruptions could be.

Humidity affects nearly all processing environments, but some, like heat treating, are more prone to humidity-related disruptions This question was submitted to the Ask the Expert team at Ipsen: Operating a furnace in an environment that has been dealing with high heat and humidity has posed more challenges than we’ve experienced in the past. What are some things that we should be watching out for when operating our furnaces to make sure they’re running efficiently despite the temperature and humidity?

In this best of the web article, consider the damage humidity can do to your vacuum furnace and gather some tips to maintain your vacuum furnaces during hot, muggy weather.

An excerpt:

“High temperatures cause changes in electricity flows, which increase resistance. Additionally, excessive humidity reduces transformer insulation and resistance, while oxidizing electrical conductors. And the difference between cooling water temperature and ambient temperature with high humidity can cause the vacuum vessel to “sweat,” affecting the entire furnace’s electrical system and transformers’ performance.

Here are nine key things you can do to maintain vacuum furnaces during hot, muggy weather:

  • Clean the hot zone, check insulation and ceramics, and repair if necessary. Run periodic burnout cycles.
  • Check, secure, and mark all electrical connections. Apply conductive copper grease to improve electrical contact between surfaces.
  • Clean all vents in the control cabinet without the air-conditioning. Use silica gel to reduce moisture.” 

Read the rest of the list and the entire article from Ipsen by clicking here: “Ask the Expert: Protecting Your Vacuum Furnace from Humidity (Part 2)”

Read Part 1 (about air curtains that protect equipment from humidity just like the air curtains you encounter when walking from a hot parking lot into a cold grocery store) here and Part 3 (about vacuum cool events) here.



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Nitriding and Surface Condition of Parts

Best of the WebSource: Advanced Heat Treat Corp.

Metallography and nitriding, while two separate things, actually have a relationship. Do you know what it is? Would you be surprised to know that one enhances the other? Read this best of the web article to clearly see how metallography results help the nitriding of ferrous alloys be the best that it can be.

Find out how metallography is an essential tool in the nitriding process. Take a look at some basic definitions and peruse some microscope images that help explain what nitriding does to different materials. Dig even deeper with discussion of problems such as not enough stress relief and the presence of sulfides. Metallography helps explain, in this article, what nitriding can do for many different applications.

An excerpt:

Producing the best nitrided layers for the given application requires a good cooperation between designers of the product and the manufacturing companies making it . . . . Metallography of the parts, or samples which run together with them, is extremely important for verifying results of this thermochemical treatment and assessing the properties of the layer formed during, the data are also used for maintaining a good predictability of the process.

Read more: "Controlling the Nitriding Layers and Process with Metallography."

 


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Vacuum Furnaces: Finding and Managing Leaks

Best of the WebSource: Solar Atmospheres

Keep that furnace running! Obviously, a furnace leak can be quite counterproductive and make it troublesome or even impossible to keep it going. What can be done? Thankfully, there are several solutions. This best of the web article gives helpful measures in defining leaks, detecting leaks, solutions for effectively stopping a leak, and much more.

As you move through the post, you'll encounter a tutorial that starts with the basics. A furnace leak if defined with differences described between a normal leak and something such as an outgassing problem. Then, other information is presented with descriptions on the rate of the leak and possible locations for said leak. The article continues with methods for leak checking and wraps up with a check list of sorts for vacuum furnace users.

An excerpt:

Some operators or leak checking personnel will often use a stethoscope when checking for leaks, as its ability to transmit low-volume sounds and eliminate external noise is exceptional. Often in gross leaks or some smaller leaks, a standard paint brush and soapy wash solution is helpful. Brush the solution around suspected leak areas. Big leaks will blow big bubbles at the leak while smaller leaks will form very fine foam.

Read more: "Vacuum Furnace Leaks and Detection Techniques"


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Heat Treat with New Techniques: Using Micro-Ingots in Steel Production

Source: Powder Metallurgy Review

Railroad wheel bearing from AISI 8620 steel (photo source: “Powder Metallurgy Review)

Many of you are likely to have heard Harb Nayar, president of TAT Technologies, LLC, expert in all things sintering, explain innovative ways to produce heat treated products. But perhaps you are wondering, how would “atomised prealloyed steel particles,” that is micro-ingots, work within the realm of heat treat?

This Heat Treat Today Best of the Web feature is pulled from a powder metallurgy (PM) whitepaper in which Harb Nayar describes the PM background, processes, and application in more detail. Read his detailed whitepaper, “The micro-ingot route: A variant of the PM process that could offer new opportunities for the PM industry,” on the web, or download the free PDF.

An excerpt: “This micro-ingot approach, when combined with newer heat treatment technologies, can lead to a redesign of the current macro-ingot products that can potentially help to reduce the weight of the finished product resulting in a longer product life span.”

Read More: “The micro-ingot route: A variant of the PM process that could offer new opportunities for the PM industry,” Powder Metallurgy Review, Autumn/Fall 2020, Vol. 9 No. 3, pages 81-87.

 

 

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Heat Treating Comparative Study on New Tech

Best of the WebSource: AMpower

Don't you just wish there was direct, consolidated information that clearly identified the key characteristics of new technologies? All too often, there is a dissonance between scholarly discoveries and jargon and the work on the ground (or the shop floor, as it were). But today's resource is different.

In this Heat Treat Today Best of the Web feature, Ampower presents analytical evaluations of sinter-based additive manufacturing (AM) technologies compared against laser beam powder bed fusion (LB-PBF) and metal injection molding (MIM). The analysis covers over 50 specimens from 9 different system suppliers. The authors are Dr.-Ing. Maximilian Munsch, Matthias Schmidt-Lehr, and Dr.-Ing. Eric Wycisk (pictured above left to right).

An excerpt: "For automotive and machine industry, binder jetting technology and metal fused deposition modeling offer great future potential. They will cover the gap between casting and LB-PBF regarding cost and productivity."

Read more: Metal Additive Manufacturing with Sinter-Based Technologies

All images were sourced from www.am-power.de/.

 

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Heat Treat Basics: What’s Happening to Metals During Heat Treatment

Best of the WebSource: Advanced Heat Treat Corp. Blog

Graphic of Atomic Structures (Photo Source: AHT Blog post “What’s Happening to Metals During Heat Treatment”)

For this Heat Treat Today Technical Tuesday, check out this Best of the Web primer if you are looking to share a few basic pieces of heat treat info with your trainees. These heat treat fundamentals are about what happens to metals in the heat treatment process, tracing steel heat treating back to the ancient Romans in 223 B.C. — though, Encyclopedia Britannica currently places the origins in Egypt by 900 BC. Heat treatment benefits, atomic structural transformation, and hardenability are all covered here.

An excerpt: “Not every steel reacts the same. Chemical composition can vary greatly between the different grades of steel. Certain alloying elements can greatly increase the hardenability of steels such as nickel (Ni), chromium (Cr) and molybdenum (Mo). Hardenability is not how hard a material is. Hardenability directly relates to the ability of a metal to form martensite and martensistic [sic.] structure upon quenching, which points to…”

Read more: “What’s Happening to Metals During Heat Treatment”

(photo source: Lance Anderson at unsplash.com)

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New Study in AM Released

Typical tensile properties of AM Ti-6Al-4V in as build condition

Source: AMPOWER

There is so much to learn in so little time, but if you are at all interested in additive manufacturing (AM), you will want to check out this new study.

This Heat Treat Today’s Best of the Web feature is full of scholarly findings presented in an easily accessible PDF for free. Three insights that the study elaborates on are: Titanium represents largest share of materials in AM; HIP cycles are not optimized for AM; and part performance may be increased by optimized HIP cycles. The study was developed by Dr.-Ing. Maximilian Munsch, Matthias Schmidt-Lehr, and Dr.-Ing. Eric Wycisk (pictured above in that order).

You can check out these summary insights of the study, or download the complete study for free at “Additive Manufacturing Material Performance Optimization: Increasing properties of Ti-6Al-4V parts by AM specific HIP treatments.”

An excerpt: “To increase the part performance hot isostatic pressing (HIP) is commonly used for highly demanding applications and has become a common post- process for titanium AM parts as well. However, the typically used temperature-pressure-cycles for AM are derived from HIP processes originally used for casting parts.”

 

 

All images were sourced from www.am-power.de/.

 

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Fringe Friday: Can Solar Panels Use Non-Toxic Metals?

Source: Interesting Engineering

Solar Panels (photo source: InterestingEngineering.com)

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's Heat Treat Fringe Friday Best of the Web article on efficient alloy-based solar panels. These solar panels are free of toxic metals and can be implemented in producing electronic devices, buildings, and vehicles.

Check out how scientists from Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology in South Korea were able to overcome issues of underperformance in this article by Interesting Engineering: "Efficient Alloy-Based Solar Panels Created Free of Toxic Metals."

An excerpt: "'Thin-film solar cells using bronze (Cu-Sn) and brass (Cu-Zn) as base materials are composed of non-toxic earth-abundant materials, and have been studied worldwide because of their low cost, high durability, and sustainability,' said Kang[...] While theoretically they are said to perform as well as top market products, in reality, they severely underperform[...] The scientists looked for a way to bypass these flaws and produce the best quality CZTSSe (copper, zinc, tin, sulfur, and selenium) thin films. They came up with the ingenious solution..."

 

(photo source: marvin meyers at unsplash.com)

(photo source: gabriel chouinard at unsplash.com)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(photo source: Alin Zainescy at unsplash.com)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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