Two different specialty automotive components manufacturers have expanded their heat treating processing lines in order to meet the growing needs of their clients. The new furnace equipment will replace existing systems and bolster oil quench hardening and salt quench austempering capabilities.
CAN-ENG Furnaces International Ltd, based in Niagara Falls, ON, Canada, will supply mesh belt furnace systems, oil quench and salt quench systems, post quench wash systems, CAN-ENG PET™ SCADA system, and integrated controls. The automotive parts manufacturers chose designs that provide low energy consumption, reduced part mixing, reduce part damage and part distortion potential, and high uptime productivity.
The press release is available in its original form here.
What process holds a soft spot in your heart? Tempering or annealing? For Valentine's Day, turn up the heat -- errr heat treatments -- with this look at the differences in tempering and annealing! Heat TreatToday has resources for you to spark some thought and learning on these processes.
Sentiments and strong feelings can certainly be heightened this Valentine's Day. While tempering and annealing may not lend themselves easily to the holiday, we hope you enjoy a bit of a nod to the day in our headings below. Make use of the Reader Feedback button, too, and keep us in the loop with questions and comments on what heat treatment you love.
Problem with Annealing? Get to the Heart of the Issue
An automotive parts manufacturer was running into problems with cracking parts. The variable valve timing plates were returning from heat treatment with this problem. To determine why those parts were cracking after the annealing process, an investigation was launched by metallurgists at Paulo.
The presence of nitrogen combining with the aluminum already present in the particular steel being used was forming aluminum nitrides. What could be done? Read more in the case study article below to find out a workable solution that allowed the annealing to create a crack-free product.
Induction, Rapid Air, Oven and Furnace Tempering: Which One do You Love?
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This article gives some perspectives, from experts in the field, on what kinds of tempering are available and for what the processes are used.
Hear from Bill Stuehr of Induction Tooling, Mike Zaharof of Inductoheat, and Mike Grande of Wisconsin Oven with some basics and background information on tempering. Those reasons alone make this resource helpful with information like this: "tempering at higher temperatures results in lower hardness and increased ductility," says Mike Grande, vice president of sales at Wisconsin Oven. "Tempering at lower temperatures provides a harder steel that is less ductile."
More specific in-depth study is presented as well. The Larson-Miller equation is considered, and the importance of temperature uniformity is emphasized. Read more of the perspectives: "Tempering: 4 Perspectives — Which makes sense for you?"
Cast or Wrought Radiant Tubes in Annealing Furnaces - is Cheaper Really What to Fall For?
Marc Glasser, director of Metallurgical Services at Rolled Alloys, takes a look at radiant tubes. He particularly discusses the cast tubes and wrought tubes. For use in continuous annealing furnaces, there are several factors contributing to choice of radiant tube type.
Marc says, "Justification for the higher cost wrought alloy needs to take into consideration initial fabricated tube cost, actual tube life, AND the lost production of each anticipated downtime cycle as these downtime costs are often much more than material costs." He probes into areas that may not be considered when thinking of all the costs involved. Read more of his article "Radiant Tubes: Exploring Your Options."
Tempering Furnaces: Improvements are Thrilling
The expert behind this piece shows the importance of tempering, particularly in automotive fastener production. Tim Donofrio, vice president of sales at CAN-ENG Furnaces International Limited examines what's working in the tempering furnaces. The products are meeting and exceeding expectations.
To wrap up this Technical Tuesday post on tempering and annealing, head over to this additional resource to round out the scope of each process. "What is the Difference: Tempering VS. Annealing" gives a summary perspective on the heat treatments discussed above.
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A North American producer of mining, construction, and material handling products added a continuous quench and temper furnace system as part of a larger plant expansion to bring foreign outsourced manufacturing in house.
Can-Eng Furnaces International Limited's furnace will be part of an automated manufacturing cell and fed automatically from upstream handling equipment. The multizone belt style temper furnace employs high efficiency natural gas-fired heating and recirculation systems. Having the furnace system in house will not only improve part quality but also help eliminate overall shipping costs and reduce supply chain issues.
Find heat treating products and services when you search on Heat Treat Buyers Guide.com
Mesh belt furnaces are the workhorse of the heat treating industry. With constant pressure to enhance performance and develop quality products, mesh belt furnaces are keeping up with the demand. In this article written by Tim Donofrio, vice president of Sales at CAN-ENG Furnaces International Limited, discover the ways mesh belt furnaces are addressing demands for innovation and quality.
This Technical Tuesday article appeared in Heat TreatToday’s February 2022 Air & Atmosphere Furnace Systems print edition.
Tim Donofrio Vice President of Sales Can-Eng Furnaces International Source: Can-Eng Furnaces International Ltd.
Introduction
Manufacturers of high volume, high strength metal components constantly face increasing pressures to improve and develop enhanced performance and quality products while simultaneously addressing cost pressures placed upon them. The quality products include cold-formed automotive fasteners and clips, construction nails and screws, cutting and timing chain products, drive system gears, and bearing components, to mention a few. These reference components all require different types of heat treatment processes that impart a unique thermal profile which results in making the component stronger, tougher, more flexible, resistant to wear and corrosion, and improves the overall life of the component.
Mesh Belt Furnaces — Background
Mesh belt furnaces are synonymous with high volume heat treatment of formed, forged, and machined metal components that require soft handling methods to prevent part damage during processing. Furthermore, these systems are well equipped with features that reduce the opportunity for part mixing and contamination within the system. Modern mesh belt furnaces have been put into production around the world to achieve capacities from 100 lb/hr to 7000 lb/hr. Manufacturers today often favor higher capacity heat treatment systems as they offer more efficient returns on investment over lower capacity systems. The heat treatment processes ideally suited for mesh belt furnace systems include neutral hardening, marquenching, austempering, light case carburizing, carbonitriding, carbon restoration, normalizing, and tempering. In most cases, these processes include a multi-step process which involves heating the product to austenitizing temperatures under a reducing or carbon rich atmosphere, followed by an automatic transfer for drop from the furnace belt conveyor into a liquid quench conveyor system where the material transformation takes place. Quench systems vary in size and capacities and are custom designed around the product being heat treated. Design features may include agitation, fluid flow, and conveyor design which can greatly influence the quench speed and material transformation that results in the final physical properties achieved through quenching. Mesh belt heat treatment systems can implement various quench medias that include oil, polymer, water, and molten salts.
Mesh Belt Furnaces — Benefits
Mesh belt furnace benefits have grown significantly from their earlier developments that targeted reduced part damage and part mixing potential. Today, users are exploiting the benefits associated with increased part size range processing flexibility and capability. In the early days, part processing size range was limited to parts that weighed less than 1lb and were less than 4” in length. Today, with design enhancements, users can now process a product range that includes part sections ranging from 3/16” to 1-3/8”, part lengths up to 12” long, and part weights exceeding 2.5lbs each. This increased processing flexibility is made possible through the integration of modernized automated loading and transfer systems that minimize part drop heights and inertia, ensure precise loading, convey, and distribute products that protect against part damage while also ensuring dimensional stability is maintained to acceptable levels.
Additional advancements in the application and use of molten salt quenching have been recently exploited in response to the demand for low distortion and low residual stress level part processing. These demands are largely a result of customers’ needs to engineer products that outlive and outperform previous designs. This is largely a result of recent advancements made to support the shift in transportation technology; most noticeably, vehicle electrification and increased demands of vehicle propulsion systems. This has resulted in improved austemper and martemper technologies, paving the way for new molten salt handling designs that increase the overall safety and use of the systems. Specifically, new techniques for molten salt quench agitation, distribution, and quench drop chute fluid control have greatly improved the controllability of these systems and have also greatly improved the maintainability which has traditionally been difficult for users of previous designs.
Conclusion
It is well understood that the mesh belt furnace design provides significant benefits over other continuous and batch type processing systems for processing high volume and high-quality components that require exact metallurgical properties. The benefits of this system are immense, and system customization allows for further benefits to be integrated. The benefits discussed earlier represent recent advancements made to the mesh belt atmosphere furnace system that users are enjoying today. It should be recognized that several other design benefits also include:
Electrical heating systems, natural gas, and atmosphere reduction systems as a means of reducing users’ carbon footprint
Improved temperature uniformity of systems to support the expectations of the Automotive Industry Action Group (AIAG) CQI-9 guidelines
Hybrid quenching systems that allow for greater processing flexibility and sophisticated Industry 4.0 diagnostics, reporting and data archiving of equipment conditions, and process and product processing attributes
In closing, there are many options available to manufacturers requiring heat treating processes; therefore, the benefits of the mesh belt atmosphere heat treatment system should be strongly considered when seeking out the lowest cost of ownership for manufacturing processes.
About the Author:
Tim Donofrio, vice president of Sales at CAN-ENG Furnaces International Limited, has more than 30 years of thermal processing equipment experience. Throughout his career, he has held various positions within the custom engineered forging, commercial heat treating services, and custom engineered heat treating equipment industries.
Contact Tim at tdonofrio@CAN-ENG.com or (905) 380-6526.
A Baker’s Dozen Quick Heat TreatNewsItems to Keep You Current
Heat TreatTodayoffers News Chatter, a feature highlighting representative moves, transactions, and kudos from around the industry.
Personnel and Company Chatter
GE Additive has announced the opening of its Arcam EBM Center of Excellence in Gothenburg, Sweden. The new 15,000 square meter facility triples the floor space of Arcam EBM’s previous site in Mölndal with production, R&D, training facilities, and support functions all housed under one roof.
Northern Minerals Ltd., Australia, has signed a rare earths supply agreement with Germany’s Thyssenkrupp Materials Trading for 100% offtake from the Western Australia Browns Range pilot plant, which has already begun producing heavy rare earth carbonates. Under the terms of the agreement, Thyssenkrupp will purchase all heavy rare earth carbonates from the pilot plant and will serve as the exclusive sales partner of Northern Minerals. The two companies will jointly work on the implementation of separating technologies and future expansion of the Browns Range project.
Fluxtrol Inc. presented at the 2019 National Induction Heat Treatment Technology Seminar & Mr. Shen Qingtong Career 67th Anniversary Event in Luoyang City, Henan Province, China. The presentation was titled, “What is Happening When We Induction Scan Harden an Axle?”
Equipment Chatter
An international aerospace firm based in the southeastern United States recently purchased spray/dunk washers manufactured and shipped by Premier/BeaverMatic.
A universal oven (No. 841) was recently put to use heat treating at a customer’s facility, provided by Grieve Corporation.
The production facilities of China-based stainless steel producer Fuxin Special Steel Co Ltd, a part of Formosa Plastics Corporation, in Zhangzhou city in Fujian Province of China, were expanded by a new hot rolling mill as well as cold rolling mills including continuous annealing line and numerous finishing lines. The supply contract for coil transport logistics between the individual plants was awarded to AMOVA GmbH, a company of SMS group.
A hot stamping company in Grand Rapids, Michigan, recently purchased an integrated three-chamber furnace from Lindberg/MPH. A recent video of the installed furnace (at Lindberg/MPH’s website) shows the integration with a robotic transfer system and a hydraulic press.
A rapid heating furnace was recently purchased by a research organization to be used for lightweight hot stamping & formed aluminum automotive component product development. Can-Eng Furnaces International Limited was awarded the contract for the equipment which will integrate the aluminum sheet heating furnace with existing equipment to support both automotive manufacturers and Tier 1 suppliers throughout North America for the development of new safety-critical, lightweight structural components.
A company from within the pharmaceutical industry purchased a Gruenberg steam-heated granulation dryer from Thermal Product Solutions.
Kudos Chatter
Ipsen USA announces its next Corporate Academy class for training Field Service Engineers, part of a fast-track development strategy to continue increasing technical
service capacity in the field. Participants get 26 weeks of comprehensive classroom knowledge, hands-on troubleshooting experience, and on-the-job field training. expertise in servicing and maintaining furnace equipment.
The Cleveland Chapter of ASM International will be hosting its Season Kick-off Event on Friday, September 13, 2019, raising money for the Annual Scholarship Fund. The event will be a luncheon, followed by an 18-hole, shot-gun start golf tournament and ending with dinner and awards, at Briarwood Golf Course in Broadview Hgts, Ohio. For more information, contact Rosanne Brunello, incoming chair, at ASMInternational.org/cleveland. Non-golfers welcome to cheer and/or help.
Novelis and Georgia Institute of Technology recently established the Novelis Innovation Hub at Georgia Tech Company, committing $2.5 million to initiate transformational innovation through sponsored research.
On August 12, 2019, Parker Hannifin and ASM International officially dedicated two new laboratories located at ASM’s headquarters in Materials Park, Ohio. The Powder Characterization Lab and the Computed Tomography Lab were established due in large part to the partnership that Parker Hannifin formed with ASM, allowing key equipment to be acquired for use in the evaluation of additive manufactured metal parts. The Powder Characterization Lab focuses on the size, flow, and shape characteristics of metal powders. The laboratory utilizes a Freeman Powder Rheometer FT4, Horiba Partica LA-960, and a Retsch Technology Camsizer X2, in a total cleanroom environment. The Computed Tomography Lab focuses on non-destructive analysis of metallic parts by way of a Nikon XT H 225 ST CT scanner and an Olympus LEXT OLS5000 laser confocal microscope.
Heat TreatTodayis 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
A Dozen Quick Heat TreatNews Items to Keep You Current
Heat TreatTodayoffers News Chatter, a feature highlighting representative moves, transactions, and kudos from around the industry.
Personnel and Company Chatter
John Finch has joined Plibrico Company LLC as the Southeastern Territory Manager. Mr. Finch, an accomplished refractory professional and is an active member of several different industry and refractory associations.
Timothy C. Fish has joined the sales team at Solar Atmospheres of Western PA as Regional Sales Manager, focusing on the Midwest region.
Triumph Fabrications is being acquired by Arlington Capital Partners. Triumph consists of four companies that manufacture, coat, and assemble complex sheet metal components for fixed wing and rotorcraft platforms. Heat treating and annealing are included in the operations.
A new state-of-the-art aluminum billet manufacturing facility will be constructed in the Rapids East Commerce Center in the City of Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin. Matalco Inc., a member of the Giampaolo Group, will house the new facility in a 110,000 sq ft manufacturing plant, which at full production capacity, will produce in excess of 230 million pounds of high-quality aluminum billet. This is part of a larger investment plan to construct several greenfield aluminum remelt facilities for billet and rolling slab production in North America.
Equipment Chatter
A series of gas nitriding and tempering furnaces have been installed at a commercial heat treatment company specializing in mold & die steel heat treatment for its newly formed division. The horizontal gas nitriding furnaces supplied by JGEF Furnaces can produce a hard clean substrate onto which is deposited a duplex layer with high hardness values. The JGEF tempering furnace series will help the manufacturer achieve a pre-vacuum protective atmosphere for tempering, and the atmosphere in the furnace chamber will reduce the oxidative decarburization reaction of the heat-treated workpiece. The furnace has a load capacity of 11023 pounds and an operating temperature range of 302-1202°F
Grupo TTT, one of the leaders in heat and surface treatments, recently added a SECO/WARWICK vacuum heat treatment and brazing system equipped with high-pressure gas quench to their Bergara, Spain, facility to run a variety of processes. This is the fourth system purchased by Grupo TTT with an earlier installation in Europe, and two systems currently in operation in Mexico.
Three box furnaces have been shipped for installation by Lindberg/MPH. An unnamed customer purchased one Temperite™ Box Furnace and one Treet-All™ Box Furnace to work in tandem. The Temperite™ Box Furnace is configured for aging, annealing, austempering, baking, solution treating, and tempering applications, while the Treet-All™ Box Furnace is configured for annealing, ashing, austempering, brazing, preheating, and solution treating applications. In addition, Lindberg/MPH announced the shipment of one Treet-All™ Box Furnace to the technology industry. The maximum temperature rating of this light industrial box furnace is 2050°F.
A state-of-the-art continuous mesh belt heat treat system has been commissioned for the production of high-quality automotive fasteners. CAN-ENG Furnaces International Ltd was selected for a project in the Piedmont Region of Italy, one of four installation locations for this globally recognized producer of specialty automotive fasteners.
A Blue M Friction-Aire® Safety Oven, which provides a controlled heat source without heating elements, was recently shipped to a manufacturer of consumer products by Thermal Product Solutions.
Kudos Chatter
StandardAero’s Maryville, Tennessee facility recently completed and shipped its 10,000th auxiliary power unit (APU) repair since the nearly 25 years it has been providing APU MRO services to the industry. The specific 10,000th repair was on a Honeywell model 36-150RJ APU for a regional aircraft operator.
Allied Mineral Products has launched a new Chinese-language website. The website, alliedchina.com, targets the local business market in China while actively engaging existing customers. In Northern China, Allied’s manufacturing facility in Tianjin celebrated its 20th anniversary last year.
The ASM Materials Education Foundation is pleased to announce the winners of the 2018 ASM Materials Genome Toolkit competition. As determined by an independent review committee, the undergraduate engineering departments at Georgia Institute of Technology, Louisiana Technological University, Montana Technological University, and Worcester Polytechnic Institute will receive a three-year site license for a suite of Thermo-Calc software tools intended to aid in the instruction of computational materials design, an emerging engineering practice deemed essential to the success of the U.S. Materials Genome Initiative (MGI) and global leadership in manufacturing.
Heat TreatTodayis 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.
15 Quick Heat Treat News Items to Keep You Current
Heat Treat Today offers News Chatter, a feature highlighting representative moves, transactions, and kudos from around the industry.
Personnel and Company Chatter
Advanced Heat Treat Corp (AHT), which provides heat treat services and metallurgical solutions, announced today the addition of three new sales and marketing employees: Vasko Popovski, Jason Taylor, and Lindsey Newcomb. Popovski will focus on heat treat needs in the Great Lakes area. Taylor will cover sales in the southeast region of the country. Newcomb, Marketing Manager in the corporate office located in Iowa
Dr. Guido Kleinschmidt, who is a member of the Managing Board of SMS group GmbH, is the new President of METEC, the International Metallurgical Trade Fair and Congresses from 25 to 29 June 2019. He was elected unanimously at the recent meeting of the steering committee of the four trade fairs GIFA, METEC, THERMPROCESS, NEWCAST. The election was necessary because the former METEC President Marcel Fasswald had left SMS group to join Thyssengroup Industrial Solutions AG as Chief Operating Officer.
Giantonio Toldo, Operations Manager for Element Materials Technology (Element) Padova laboratory in Limena, Italy, has been appointed as the Vice President of the Italian Association for Metallurgy’s (AIM) Technical Committee for the Control and Characterization of Materials.
OMG Inc. recently announced four promotions in supply-chain management and operations: Wayne Ringenbach was promoted to director of Manufacturing, which includes heat treating; Brad Bedard was promoted to director of Supply Chain Management; Chris Mowatt was promoted to director of Manufacturing Engineering; and Geri McCarthy was promoted to director of Operations.
Samuel, Son & Co., Mississauga, Ontario, has acquired Sierra Aluminum, Riverside, California. Sierra is a supplier of aluminum extrusions and related products to a number of end markets, including construction and transportation. Sachin Shivaram has been named president of Sierra Aluminum Group, following Ed Harris’s decision to retire from the company.
A heat treating equipment supplier based in Plymouth, Michigan, recently shipped a pair of 36” x 48” x 36” electrically heated temper furnaces to a major drive supplier in the Southeast. Gasbarre Furnace Group/J. L. Becker designed the furnaces, which operate from 300°F to 850°F with a temperature uniformity of ±5°F, to preheat workloads prior to hardening and temper workloads after hardening.
An India-based conglomerate recently contracted Can-Eng Furnaces International Limited to design, manufacture, install, and commission an aluminum automotive casting heat treatment system for its new greenfield North American expansion in South Carolina. The new system will service three distinct aluminum product groups with unique treatment cycles.
A global manufacturer of thermal-processing equipment recently shipped a custom Gruenberg bench oven to the movable machinery industry. The bench oven is rated for Class B operation per the NFPA 86 specifications. Thermal Product Solutions (TPS) designed this bench oven to be used in the customer’s testing and product development department to process various mechanical apparatuses affixed to a Ling Dynamic Electronic Shaker. The maximum temperature rating of this Class B oven is 1022°F (550°C) and the work chamber dimensions are 36” W x 36” D x 36” H. In addition, TPS delivered a Gruenberg cabinet oven to the research and development industry. This Class B oven will process up to 5 gallons of water per batch from 1500 lbs of metal powder. The maximum temperature rating of this Class B cabinet oven is 250° F and the work chamber dimensions are 48” W x 48” D x 48” H. Both Gruenberg ovens are constructed from a structural steel frame that supports the fully welded 304 stainless steel chamber liner and the exterior sheet metal.
Grievehas built a 1,250°F, horizontal airflow cabinet oven used for heat treating at the customer’s facility. With workspace dimensions of 38" by 38" by 38", it has 12"-thick insulated walls comprising 2" of 2,300°F ceramic blanket and 10" of 10 lb./cu. ft. density Rockwool.
A vacuum space simulation system was recently shipped to a company that manufactures equipment for space. Tenney Environmental designed this system to test ionic thruster chips for space vehicle systems. The simulator will allow the customer to test their products in-house, while replicating outer space conditions. The dual cryopump vacuum system is sized specifically to maintain the high vacuum while the thrusters are firing inside the vessel.
An industrial manufacturer recently purchased a custom car bottom furnace from LEWCO, based in Sandusky, Ohio. The electrically heated oven, which is rated for a maximum temperature of 1,300°F., is used for annealing steel parts, featuring a workspace of 72”W x 140”D x 90”H, and manufactured and designed to NFPA 86 “Class B” standards.
Gasbarre Furnace Group/J. L. Becker ships electrically heated temper furnaces
Can-Eng Furnaces International shps aluminum automotive casting heat treatment system
Thermal Product Solutions shipped a custom Gruenberg bench oven
TPS delivered a Gruenberg cabinet oven
Grieve built a 1,250°F, horizontal airflow cabinet oven
Tenney Environmental built a vacuum space simulation system
LEWCO shipped a custom car bottom furnace
Kudos Chatter
Liebherr-Aerospace Toulouse SAS, center of excellence for aerospace air management systems within the Liebherr Group, has obtained accreditation from NADCAP (National Aerospace and Defense Contractors Accreditation Program) for its Materials Testing Laboratory.
A leading provider of vacuum impregnation technology, Godfrey & Wing, passed its transition audit for ISO 9001:2015/IATF 16949 certification from Smithers Quality Assessments (SQA), an accredited third-party registrar. The IATF 16949:2016 certification is the recently published revision to ISO/TS 16949: 2009, one of the most widely used international standards in the automotive industry. The standard acts as a supplement to ISO 9001: 2015 for automotive quality management systems.
Bonnell Aluminum, a subsidiary of Tredegar Corporation also recently announced that its aluminum extrusion manufacturing facility in Newnan, Georgia, has achieved certification under IATF 16949:2016.
In January of 2018, Logik Precision Inc. (LPI), a CNC machining, water jet, EDM and welding/fabrication service provider primarily operating in the oil & gas industry, selected QMSC, which provides quality management consulting services and is the developer of QMS, to provide professional consulting services to transition the organization from ISO 9001:2008 to the current revision of 2015. QMSC performed gap audit, completed revisions to the quality management system, performed employee training, and represented LPI during the registrar audit which was conducted on July 11th and 12th. Logik Precision successfully demonstrated compliance and commitment to its quality program. The audit was closed with zero findings and no observations. QMSC will provide ongoing fractional Quality Director services to assist LPI with continuous improvement.
Liebherr Aerospace obtains NADCAP
Godfrey & Wing passes audit for ISO 9001:2015/IATF 16949 certification
Heat TreatToday 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.
15 Quick Heat Treat News Items to Keep You Current
Heat TreatToday offers News Chatter, a feature highlighting representative moves, transactions, and kudos from around the industry.
Personnel & Company Chatter
Professor Chris Sutcliffe, Director of Research and Development (R&D) at Renishaw‘s Additive Manufacturing Products Division (AMPD), was awarded a prestigious Silver Medal from the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAE), recognizing his role in driving the development of metal 3D printed implants for use in human and veterinary surgery and celebrating his successful commercialization of additive manufacturing products as part of his work with Renishaw, the University of Liverpool, Stryker Orthopaedics and Fusion Implants Ltd.
Michael Handscombe joins UK-based Phoenix Temperature Measurement as National and International Sales Manager to support PhoenixTM temperature monitoring solutions used in industrial heat treatment and furnace surveying and other industries.
One of five new vacuum furnaces, with an all-metal hotzone and 15 bar Argon quenching with an 8,000lb capacity, have been delivered to the Cleveland division of Pauloand will be ready for production late July. This represents the first step of a larger expansion that includes a new building.
Two large heat-treating furnaces were recently rebuilt and upgraded at Metlab, a heat treatment and surface enhancement company located in Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania. The furnaces, designated P-1 and P-2, are believed to be the largest atmosphere-controlled pit furnaces in North America and are used to neutral harden, carburize and harden, nitride, anneal, and stress relieve large components or multiple quantities of parts.
A 20-foot long car bottom air furnace capable of handling a workload up to 30,000 lbs will be installed at Solar Atmospheres of Western PA during July 2018 and surveyed in accordance with AMS2750. With a maximum operating temperature of 1400°F, this furnace will accommodate not only the tempering of large tool steel components but also age hardening of 15-5 PH, 17-4 PH, and nickel-based alloys. Although Solar is typically known as a “vacuum only” heat treater, the company notes the need for heat treating non-finished parts and materials in accordance with the same specifications (AMS, MIL, Boeing and Airbus) within different atmospheres where surface oxidation is permissible.
Robrecht Himpe retired from his position as CEO of ArcelorMittal North America and CEO of AM/NS Calvert on July 1, as well as his duties with ArcelorMittal’s executive management team. He has been with the group for 37 years and will be succeeded as ArcelorMittal North America CEO by Brad Davey, who has been serving as chief marketing officer of ArcelorMittal North America and head of global automotive.
Team, Inc., an industrial services company based in Houston, Texas, recently announced that Arthur F. Victorson, President of the Inspection and Heat Treating segment, will retire from the company on September 30, 2018. In connection with his retirement, Mr. Victorson will transition from his current role, effective July 15, 2018, and serve as a special advisor to Amerino Gatti, Team’s Chief Executive Officer, to ensure a seamless transition. Team anticipates naming a successor to Mr. Victorson in the near future.
A partnership has been formed between Plibrico, based in Northbrook, Illinois, and Upstate Refractory Services, headquartered in Newark, New York.
John Hynes has been promoted at Pauloto Director of Information Systems from his previous role as Manager of Information Technology. John has been with Paulo for just over one year, strengthening the company’s IT position.
Chris Sutcliffe, Renishaw
Michael Handscombe, PhoenixTM
One of 5 new furnaces at Paulo
New equipment at Metlab
Solar Atmospheres installs car bottom air furnace.
Robrecht Himpe retires as CEO of ArcelorMittal North America.
New partnership between Plibrico and Upstate Refractory Services
John Hynes promoted at Paulo to Director of Information Systems.
Equipment Chatter
A natural gas-fired, enhanced-duty, walk-in oven was recently shipped to the technology industry by Wisconsin Oven Corporation for use in post-curing refractory material. With a maximum operating temperature of 300°F, the oven was designed with the capacity to heat 8,000 pounds of steel and 4,000 pounds of refractory material from 70° to 150° F within 180 minutes.
A 1400°F electric, inert atmosphere tempering furnace from Grieve Corporation, No. 885, is currently being used for heat treating weldments at a customer’s facility.
An India-based conglomerate recently commissioned an aluminum automotive casting heat treatment system from CAN-ENG Furnaces International Limited for its new greenfield North American expansion in South Carolina.
CAN-ENG Furnaces, aluminum automotive casting heat treatment system
Kudos Chatter
The F-35 Joint Program Office of The Pentagon and Lockheed Martin delivered the 300th production F-35 aircraft, a US Air Force F-35A, to be delivered to Hill Air Force Base, Utah. “The F-35 weapons system is a key enabler of our National Defense Strategy and is providing our warfighters the combat-proven, advanced capabilities they need to meet mission requirements,” said Vice Admiral Mat Winter, program executive officer for the F-35 Joint Program Office. The first 300 F-35s include 197 F-35A conventional takeoff and landing (CTOL) variants, 75 F-35B short takeoff/vertical landing (STOVL) variants, and 28 F-35C carrier variants (CV) and have been delivered to U.S. and international customers. More than 620 pilots and 5,600 maintainers have been trained, and the F-35 fleet has surpassed more than 140,000 cumulative flight hours.
The first Future Aluminum Forum was held on 8th & 9th May 2018 in Milan, Italy, with more than 150 delegates from across the aluminum manufacturing and processing industries gathering to hear from technical experts and uncover the myths behind Industry 4.0 and what this means for the manufacturing value chain. An Advisory Board was established to develop a strategic approach towards integrating Industry 4.0 across the aluminum manufacturing and processing sectors.
A center for aerospace air management systems, Liebherr-Aerospace Toulouse SAS, in Toulouse, France, recently obtained accreditation from the National Aerospace and Defense Contractors Accreditation Program (NADCAP) for its materials testing laboratory. This accreditation follows an audit conducted in early March 2018 by the Performance Review Institute (PRI), which focused on both the overall quality system of the laboratory and the practice of static and dynamic mechanical tests.
Lockheed Martin and Pentagon deliver 300th aircraft.
Future Aluminum Board meets in Milan, Italy.
Liebherr-Toulouse obtains Nadcap Approval.
Heat Treat Today celebrates with our heat treatment industry partners by highlighting their accomplishments and announcements 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.
A Mexico-based automotive supplier recently awarded a contract for the design and manufacture of a 1,500 lb/hr mesh belt furnace system for the austenitizing and molten salt quenching of unique components used in the manufacture of its drivetrain systems.
This contract was awarded to Can-Eng Furnaces International Ltd, which has scheduled the project to be commissioned early 2018 in Mexico’s centralized automotive manufacturing corridor. Incorporating several technological advancements for continuous atmosphere processing of products requiring carbon diffusion and quenching via a molten salt system, known as austempering, the new system includes: automated bin-dumping loading, mesh belt atmosphere hardening furnace, salt quench, post-quench wash and rinse system, mesh belt temper oven, and endothermic gas generator.
An electrically heated furnace line has recently been commissioned by a leading bearing manufacturer for its existing production line. Responsible for producing planet shafts and pump vane products, the line, supplied by Can-Eng Furnaces International, Ltd., features a compact 1,000 lb/hr atmosphere temper and soluble oil system for rust prevention.
A North American producer of mining, construction, and material handling products added a continuous quench and temper furnace system as part of a larger plant expansion to bring foreign outsourced manufacturing in house.
