Honeywell Aerospace

10 Quick Heat Treat News Items to Keep You Current

/ FEATURED NEWS, HEAT TREAT NEWS INDUSTRIES

10 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

  • A Berwick, Pennsylvania, machining company which offers heat treating among its services was recently acquired by precision machining provider DPMS, based in Santa Clara, California. K-Fab Inc. operates a 22,000-sq.-ft. precision machine shop that manufactures parts for the aerospace, defense, and semiconductor sectors.
  • GKN Powder Metallurgy recently announced a strategic collaboration with HP Inc, becoming the first to deploy the just-launched HP Metal Jet, a groundbreaking binder jetting technology, into its factories to produce functional metal parts for auto and industrial leaders, including Volkswagen and Wilo, and for companies around the world.
  • Joshua Farrell recently took over the Operations Manager position at Mid-South Metallurgical, based in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

Equipment Chatter

  • California-based Delta H Technologies, LLC, recently delivered a commissioned dual chamber aerospace heat treating system — the largest and most advanced to date — to a leading U.S. military aircraft manufacturer. Both chambers are certified for heating parts up to 1200°F and capable of solution heat treating, aging, annealing aluminum, stress relieving titanium and ferrous castings, weldments, and aging of PH stainless steel.
  • An auto parts manufacturer recently received shipment of a customized oxidation nitriding furnace, manufactured by JGEF Furnace, a vacuum heat treating  equipment supplier with U.S. offices in San Francisco, California. The pit furnace, which has useful dimensions of 43.3 inches (1,100 mm) in diameter x 70.9 inches (1,800 mm) high, has a maximum temperature rating of 1292°F (700°C). The goal for this project was to represent an advanced solution for metallic parts. The furnace includes an advanced oxidation system that ensures the workpieces are preheated in a controlled oxidizing atmosphere and guarantees corrosion resistance, which in turn facilitates nitrogen uptake and growth of the nitride compound layer.
  • A large capacity fastener hardening furnace system has been commissioned by a tier one automotive supplier based in Detroit, Michigan. CAN-ENG Furnaces International Ltd has been contracted to design and commission the system for the company, which offers heat treating among its services.
  • A large capacity SECO/Warwick vacuum furnace was delivered to U.K.-based Wallwork Heat Treatment company just before Christmas.

Kudos Chatter

  • America Makes recently announced the awardees of a Directed Project Opportunity on advancing additive manufacturing (AM) post-processing techniques (AAPT), funded by the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), Materials and Manufacturing Directorate, Manufacturing and Industrial Base Technology Division. Awardee #1 is Arizona State University, in conjunction with Quintus Technologies; Phoenix Heat Treating, Inc.; and Phoenix Analysis & Design Technologies, Inc. Awardee #2 is ASTM International Additive Manufacturing Center of Excellence (AM CoE), a collaborative, which includes ASTM International, Auburn University, EWI, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Wichita State University – National Institute for Aviation Research (NIAR), in conjunction with Quintus Technologies, Carpenter Technologies Corporation, Aerojet Rocketdyne, Rolls Royce Corporation, Honeywell Aerospace, GE Aviation, and Raytheon.
  • Paulo recently announced the recent addition of the St. Louis Division to the approved heat treat sources list for General Motors High-Pressure Die Casting Die Insert Material. The approval list references AWQ49658 which includes the heat treatment specifications for Hot Work Tool Steels for GM High-Pressure Die Casting applications.  The St. Louis Division joins Paulo’s Nashville plant on the approval list, which includes only seven approved locations in the US. AWQ49657 covers approved material providers, heat treaters, and testing labs. Paulo is the only US source with two facilities on the list.
  • Nominations are open for the ASM HTS/Surface Combustion Emerging Leader Award, which recognizes an outstanding early-to-midcareer heat treating professional whose accomplishments exhibit exceptional achievements in the heat treating industry. The award was created in recognition of Surface Combustion’s 100-year anniversary in 2015. The winning young professional will best exemplify the ethics, education, ingenuity, and future leadership of our industry. Deadline for the nomination is February 1, 2019. Past winners include Olga Rowan of Caterpillar in 2015 and Lee Rothleutner of Timken in 2017. For nomination rules and forms, visit the Heat Treating Society website at hts.asminternational.org and click on Membership & Networking and Society Awards.

Heat Treat Today 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.

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What Do Fashion Watches and Aerospace Components Have in Common? 3D Metal Printing

/ FEATURED NEWS, MANUFACTURING HEAT TREAT, MANUFACTURING HEAT TREAT NEWS, SINTERING POWDER/METAL TECHNICAL CONTENT

A Swedish producer of metal powders announced recently that it has launched commercial production of the industry’s first high precision binder jetting 3D metal printer, resulting in smaller and more intricate components than any previous technology, and because heat treatment occurs after printing, the process is adaptable for a variety of materials.

Digital Metal®, a Höganäs Group company, developed the DM P2500, which continuously prints in 42 µm layers at 100 cc/hr without the need for any support structures. It has 2500 cm3 print volume available. This makes it possible to manufacture small objects in high quantities (up to 50,000 parts in one print run), comprising shapes, geometries

Ralf Carlström, General Manager, Digital Metal

and internal and external finishes never before achieved. The DM P2500 delivers a resolution of 35 µm and an average surface roughness of Ra 6 µm before additional finishing processes are applied.

Powder removed before sintering is reused for subsequent jobs, resulting in high yield and low scrap rates, meaning downtime is kept to a minimum, and there is no de-generation of the powder that other AM processes experience.

“The Digital Metal business has doubled year on year since its inception,” said Ralf Carlström, General Manager, Digital Metal. “However we’ve barely scratched the surface in terms of the potential this technology offers for designers and engineers. We’ve seen relatively small (but previously unachievable) changes to the internal structure of components result in a 30 percent improvement in overall product efficiency, which would have been impossible to produce using conventional methods. As the design and engineering community begin to explore and understand what our highly repeatable and reliable technology enables, we believe we will see huge demand for this technology.

Don Godfrey, Engineering Fellow – Additive Manufacturing, Honeywell Aerospace

By making the printers commercially available we hope to facilitate and fuel that demand.”

The second DM P2500 outside Digital Metal was installed in June 2017 and licensed to Centre Technique des Industries Mécaniques (CETIM), France’s benchmark institute and technological innovation hub for mechanical engineering. The machine started production just two days later and is already showing consistent results. The first printer is confidentially licensed to a global leader in fashion design and will see its new serial production items available at the end of this year.

Luxury watch start-up Montfort approached Digital Metal to print the dials for its watches inspired by the Swiss Alps. The binder jetting technique was the only solution that allowed Montfort the creative freedom to make watch dials with a design and finish that resembles the mineral, crystalline structure of rocks.

Additionally, in the U.S., Honeywell Aerospace and Digital Metal are exploring a number of joint 3D printing projects that will merge Honeywell’s expertise in aerospace engineering with Digital Metal’s leadership in additive manufacturing.

“The binder jetting technology Digital Metal uses to print small metal parts has the potential for various applications within the Honeywell Aerospace program,” said Don Godfrey, Engineering Fellow – Additive Manufacturing, Honeywell Aerospace. “We believe this will also be critical to applications in other key areas of the broader aerospace industry.”

 

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