No matter the craft, disappointment is inevitable when the end result doesn’t turn out as planned. But in heat treatment, distortion is more than just a disappointment, it could contribute to weakness in a component, putting lives at risk. The industry can be credited for its commitment to determining the causes and manners in which parts distort and how to eliminate the risk.
Today’s best of the web article examines the inevitability of distortion in heat treating and demonstrates how to predict changes in size and shape of parts during processing, acknowledging that “maintaining dimensional accuracy is essential, especially for mission-critical and safety-critical components with the tightest tolerances.”
An Excerpt:
“Every part you heat treat will have some degree of ‘ballooning’ and distortion, but there are ways to predict how much your parts will deform. Knowing how your parts will change during heat treatment allows you to account for that change in the design of the part and, in a perfect world, avoid an additional round of machining after heat treatment.”
Twice a month, Heat TreatToday publishes an episode of Heat TreatRadio, a unique-to-the-industry podcast that covers topics in the aerospace, automotive, medical, energy, and general manufacturing industries. Each episode features an interview with an industry leader and is full of in-depth descriptions of technical content as well as heart-felt stories from industry legends. In today's Technical Tuesday, enjoy this snapshot of four episodes from Heat TreatToday's May 2022 Induction Heating print edition.
Heat TreatRadio: Lunch & Learn with Heat TreatToday – Heat Treatment vs. Thermal Processing
Dan Herring "The Heat Treat Doctor" The HERRING GROUP, Inc.
There is a world outside the heat treating comfort zone! The heat treating world can be steel-centric, iron-centric, aluminum-centric, and natural-gas centric. What may come as a surprise to most heat treaters is heat treating is a part of a much larger industry: thermal processing. In the thermal processing industry, steel, iron, aluminum, and natural gas are less the star of the show — although they are still important. The thermal processing industry deals more with finished goods like jewelry, while the heat treating industry deals with semi-finished goods like gears and other unassembled components.
In this episode of Heat TreatRadio, Dan Herring, The Heat Treat Doctor®, takes the heat treating world out of its comfort zone and into the world of thermal processing. Learn the difference between the two terms and some surprising ways thermal processing is used — including producing mayonnaise! Also included in this episode are some interesting statistics about natural gas consumption in the U.S. and a description of calcining, an area of thermal processing.
Read the transcript, and listen to or watch the podcast here.
Heat TreatRadio: All About Heat TreatBoot Camp with Doug Glenn
Bethany Leone, Heat TreatRadio editor, and Doug Glenn, publisher of Heat TreatToday, sit down to discuss Heat TreatToday's newest undertaking: Heat TreatBoot Camp. Heat TreatBoot Camp will cram 3 to 5 to 7 years of information into just a day and a half of classes. Settle into the Double Tree by Hilton Hotel & Suites in Pittsburgh Downtown the evening of Monday, October 31st for a good night’s sleep. Lectures begin the morning of November 1st and will end the afternoon of Tuesday, November 2nd. It won’t be all lectures though; there will also be soon-to-be-announced events in the Pittsburgh area.
What is the content of the lectures? Doug Glenn and Thomas Wingens of WINGENS LLC International Industry Consultancy will provide information on the heat treating industry players, products, processes, markets, and materials. If you are an industry-insider, an industry-outsider, a new employee in the industry, or an investor interested in mergers/acquisitions and feel like you need to know more about the heat treating industry, this event is for you. There is no other seminar or webinar like Heat TreatBoot Camp.
Read the transcript, and listen to or watch the podcast here.
Heat TreatRadio: Robotics in Heat Treat, a Conversation With Dennis Beauchense, ECM-USA
Dennis Beauchesne, Managing Director, ECM-USA, Inc. Source: ECM-USA, Inc.
Labor availability is a crucial issue in today’s heat treating shops. Are robots the solution to the ever-growing labor shortage? Dennis Beauchesne, managing director at ECM-USA, Inc. thinks mechanical arms may indeed be the solution to the lack of human arms. And robots are not replacing humans or taking away their jobs — they’re actually helping workers by doing the dull, repetitive jobs no one wants to do.
Listen to this episode of Heat TreatRadio to get up to speed on developments in robotics in heat treat. Vision recognition is a key factor in improving robots. Some heat treaters are even using robot cameras to measure distortion control on finished parts. Traceability with robots enables heat treaters to track exactly where a part was in a bin throughout the entire heat treating process. And, as Dennis puts it, robots are not just for heat treaters with a high-volume of the exact same part, because with new developments, robots can be programmed on the floor to deal with many different part shapes and sizes.
Read the transcript, and listen to or watch the podcast here.
Heat TreatRadio: Heat TreatLegends: Dan Herring, The Heat Treat Doctor®
“. . .I don’t view work as work, I view it as just a true labor of love.” In this episode of Heat TreatRadio, Doug Glenn interviews a Heat TreatLegend: Dan Herring, The Heat Treat Doctor®. Dan describes how he got his start in heat treating and manufacturing as early as six years old. Now, with six books published in the heat treating industry as well as many technical articles, Dan Herring is an easily-recognizable name. Dan is known throughout the industry as an expert problem solver who truly loves his work.
Learn advice from The Heat Treat Doctor® on how to succeed as a young person in the industry, how to contribute to science, and the first lesson of business: Be honest. Tune in to hear more words of wisdom from Dan about work-life balance, living in the moment, and having infinite patience.
Read the transcript, and listen to or watch the podcast here.
Twice a month, 
