Robert (Bob) Hill, President at Solar Atmospheres of Western PA Source: Solar Atmospheres
A western PA heat treater recently degassed 175,000 pounds of 6AI-4V titanium in their 48-foot-long vacuum furnace. This is the largest and heaviest single load of titanium ever processed in the company's history.
Solar Atmospheres of Western PA vacuum degassed the load consisting of 154 sheets of titanium 40” x 240”. Their president, Bob Hill, states, “The future of the global aerospace titanium market is very promising with the many opportunities in the commercial and military aircraft markets!”
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Solar Atmospheres of Michigan took delivery of a new vacuum furnace this week, which will be used primarily for aerospace applications. The Chesterfield, MI, location is set to begin heat treating later this year.
The furnace has a working hot zone of 36” wide x 36” high x 48” deep and can handle workloads up to 5,000 lbs. To power this furnace along with nine other vacuum furnaces, a new 2600kVA transformer was installed. The new facility anticipates being fully operational by the fall of 2023 and will gather all of Solar Atmosphere's Michigan heat treating under one roof.
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ThermTech, heat treat service provider in Waukesha, WI, has increased their capabilities to provide services for the medical, aerospace, mining and oil, nuclear, and agricultural industries.
Jason Kupkovits, vice president of Sales & Strategic Direction at the company, commented on that ThermTech will be continuing their 40 years of quality assurance, turnaround time, on-site engineering, and customer service standards.
Ben Gasbarre Executive Vice President of Sales Gasbarre Thermal Processing Systems
Partnering with Gasbarre Thermal Processing Systems, ThermTech significantly increased their normalizing, annealing, stress relieving, tempering, and neutral hardening capacity through the acquisition of three new furnaces. These three furnaces --- now fully operational --- include: a dual zone, direct-fired box austenitizing furnace; a large batch tempering furnace; and an additional tempering furnace. These furnaces are compliant with AMS2750 at different class certifications.
ThermTech has also added two additional vacuum furnaces from Ipsen, USA. The furnaces have dimensions of 36” wide x 36” tall x 48” long with capabilities of quenching up to 6 bars of pressure utilizing nitrogen or argon gas as the quench medium. These large vacuum furnaces are AMS class 3 (+/-15°F) certified capable of AMS2750.
ThermTech added a solution annealing furnace from Williams Industrial Service to give their operational aluminum line additional heat treat capabilities. This line is capable of a sub-15 second transfer to air blast quench, a water quench range of 55°F up to boiling, a sub-7 second transfer to water quench which exceeds AMS 2770/AMS2771 specifications, as well as load thermocouple monitoring during the solution treatment, quenching, and aging.
Daniel Hill, PE Sales Engineer AFC-Holcroft Source: AFC-Holcroft
Another recent acquisition includes a new austempering/marquenching furnace from Michigan based AFC-Holcroft. This furnace can handle a single part racked in the vertical orientation up to 56" long. The working dimension of the furnace is 36" W x 72" L x 56" H and is capable of operating with salt temperatures ranging from 350°F -- 750°F. "The UBQA system is an environmentally friendly ‘green technology,’" commented Dan Hill, sales engineer at AFC-Holcroft, "which can be used to impart resistance to distorting, cracking or warping of heat-treated components.” Applicable processes include marquenching, austempering, and carburizing with additional washing and tempering capacity accompanying the new marquenching/austempering furnace. Installation is expected in early 2023.
The heat treat service provider's long-term strategy is to increase growth in the Midwest and on a national scale. This includes adding more workers and integrating the use of a robotics handling systems, which is expected to be installed in late 2022.
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A firearms manufacturer based in the U.S. has ordered a vacuum heat treating furnace from a Pennsylvania manufacturer.
Solar Manufacturing Inc. announced the receipt of the heat treat furnace, a model HFL-5748-2IQ, which has a hot zone of 36” x 36” x 48” deep with a weight capacity of 5,000 lbs. Its maximum operating temperature is 2400°F and it heats to 2500°F for hot zone bake out. The furnace design also has a temperature uniformity of ±10°F and is AMS2750 compliant with vacuum levels in the low micron range.
For rapid turnaround for work cooling, a 100 HP gas blower is provided for operating at 15 PSIG (2-bar) in nitrogen gas. The furnace is complete with a SolarVac® Polaris fully automated and programmable industrial controls package, and a Eurotherm digital chart recorder.
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