Lindbergh/MPH

Five Tips for Furnace Preventive Maintenance

/ FEATURED NEWS, MANUFACTURING HEAT TREAT, VACUUM FURNACES TECHNICAL CONTENT

 

Source: Lindbergh/MPH 

 

Reactive maintenance is expensive and usually requires downtime, holding up production. In contrast, preventive maintenance keeps these failures from occurring, which results in cost savings for manufacturers. Research shows that preventive maintenance can produce a 12 to 18 percent cost savings as opposed to other reactive maintenance programs.

In this Heat Treat Today Best of the Web feature, Lindbergh/MPH offers important preventative maintenance tips for heat treat furnaces.

Preventive maintenance is a list of regularly performed procedures that decreases the likelihood of a piece of equipment failing. It is performed by operators while the machine is in good working order. Regular maintenance also keeps equipment running at top performance and extends its life.

5 Preventive Maintenance Items for your Heat Treat Furnace

Heat treat furnaces are used in many manufacturing processes, including tempering, preheating, quenching, stress relieving, annealing, and more. Many factors, including high temperatures, place considerable wear and tear on the furnace components. Eventually this can cause bearings to flake, leaks to develop, and other problems to come up. Small issues can lead to mechanical failures over time that in turn lead to reactive maintenance.

Some common preventative maintenance services for heat treat furnaces include:

  1. Tuning Combustion Systems – Component wear, high temperatures, and other factors lead to burner settings drifting over time. This ultimately affects efficiency, fuel usage, emissions, and product quality. Tuning the combustion system maintains optimal performance and efficiency rates, limits excess emissions, and improves product quality.
  2. Bearing Inspections – Functional bearings are crucial to any machine, but even properly installed and operated bearings wear down over the course of time. The contact surfaces of bearings repeatedly withstand compressive loads, which eventually causes the surfaces to flake. Inadequate lubricant, improper lubricant type, breakage, wear, corrosion, and other factors can lead to bearing failure. A broken or seized bearing can stop equipment, potentially bringing the entire production line to a halt.
  3. Leak Testing – Even the smallest leak can reduce production performance and possibly result in system failure. Preventive maintenance for leaks includes testing gas shutoff valves and gas train piping for leakage.
  4. Lining Inspections – Gradually the lining of a heat treat furnace may succumb to chipping, cracking, or bubbling. Disruptions to the integrity of the lining, left unchecked, can lead to contamination that harms the quality of the product. Lining inspections prevent contamination.
  5. Safety and NFPA Testing – Safety and National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) testing protects clients from potential damage. It also ensures that preventive measures against workplace accidents are in place.

Read more, The Benefits of Preventive Maintenance

(source: Lindbergh/MPH)

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15 Quick Heat Treat News Chatter Items to Keep You Current

/ FEATURED NEWS, HEAT TREAT NEWS INDUSTRIES

Heat Treat Today offers News Chatter, a feature highlighting representative moves, transactions, and kudos from around the industry.

Personnel & Company Chatter

    • Mike Smith has joined Magnetic Specialties, Inc. as their new Business Development Manager.
    • Ipsen USA has announced the completion of its 2019 Corporate Academy class, which is part of an initiative to grow service capacity globally. Seven graduates will step into positions as field service engineers after several months of training and passing their final exam.
    • Tom Gundic recently joined Solar Atmospheres’ facility in Greenville, South Carolina, as their new plant manager.
    • Isostatic Toll Services Bilbao is pleased to announce the official opening of its new plant in Abanto-Zierbena, Spain, on January 29th.
Heating Furnace at Uddeholm AB, which is taking part in the electrical heating project
  • The Swedish Energy Agency has granted a new project that will explore the possibilities of electrifying heating processes. It will evaluate the potential of replacing gas-fired furnaces with electrically heated furnaces for material heating. Kanthal, part of the Sandvik Group, is taking part in the project.
  • Sean Toland has taken on the position of executive Vice President of Operations for Wire Experts Group, the parent company to Pelican Wire and Rubadue Wire, the second of which Toland is already serving as president.
  • NSA Industries, a provider of metal fabrication, machining, powder coating, and assembly operation, has acquired Vitex Extrusion, a provider of aluminum extrusions, machining, and fabrication services for solar and automobile customers.
  • Jon K. Tabor is retiring from the position of Chairman Emeritus of Allied Mineral Products effective March 31, 2020. He will remain on Allied’s Board of Directors.
  • Vincent Esteve has been promoted to Business Development Manager at the ECM USA, Inc. subsidiary in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin.

Equipment Chatter

  • Wisconsin Oven has shipped a Natural Gas (Direct) Fired Continuous Duty Conveyor Oven to an American manufacturer to be used for stress relieving steel snap rings used in automotive parts.
  • L&L Special Furnace Co, Inc. has shipped five model GS1714 furnaces to a worldwide leading manufacturer of chemicals and chemical coating products located in the Midwestern US.
  • Tenova LOI Thermprocess recently received an order from Joint Stock Company Pervouralsk Pipe Plant in Russia for a new roller hearth continuous furnace system for bright annealing stainless steel pipes in a 100% H2 atmosphere.
  • Lindberg/MPH announced the shipment of two Electrically Heated Nitrogen Atmosphere Pit Furnaces to the automotive industry for the purpose of heat treating automotive parts.

Kudos Chatter

  • Kittyhawk Products OR LLC has been awarded Nadcap® accreditation for Heat Treating/Hot Isostatic Pressing (HIP). Kittyhawk Inc has held Nadcap® accreditation since 2014.

    From Left to Right: Quality manager, AM/NS Calvert, Bobbie Hesley; GM supplier quality engineer, Mark Wu; AM/NS Calvert CEO, Jorge Oliveira and team members from the AM/NS hot dip galvanizing lines.
  • ArcelorMittal USA was recently honored with the General Motors Supplier Quality Excellence Award for three production facilities: AM/NS Calvert, Calvert, AL; Indiana Harbor; and I/N Tek and I/N Kote, New Carlisle, IN.

 

 

 

 

 

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 editor@heattreattoday.com

15 Quick Heat Treat News Chatter Items to Keep You Current Read More »

A Baker’s Dozen Quick Heat Treat News Items to Keep You Current

/ FEATURED NEWS, HEAT TREAT NEWS INDUSTRIES

A Baker’s Dozen 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

  • 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 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

A Baker’s Dozen Quick Heat Treat News Items to Keep You Current Read More »