Nadcap Approval

15 Quick Heat Treat News Items to Keep You Current

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 PopovskiJason 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.

Equipment Chatter

  • 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.
  • Grieve has 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.

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.

 

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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Nadcap Approval for Furnace Brazing Awarded to Southeast Heat Treat Facility

The Southeast U.S. facility of a heat treat supplier for the aerospace industry has received Nadcap approval for vacuum furnace brazing.

The Nadcap accreditation is the second in two years for the Greenville, SC, location of Solar Atmospheres’ operations; the facility received its first Nadcap approval in September 2016 to include low-pressure vacuum carburizing.

“Earning this Nadcap accreditation for vacuum furnace brazing reaffirms our commitment to providing our customers with quality services that meet the increasingly stringent requirements of the aerospace industry,” said Jon Collier, Quality Manager at Solar Atmospheres in Greenville, SC.

 

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Precision Tubing Manufacturer Awarded Nadcap Accreditation

Fine Tubes technical team with 4th Nadcap Certificate: Valerie Hart, Technical Manager; Dr. Abdul Saeid, Process Engineer; Wayne Taylor-Vicary, Deputy Cell Leader; David Killoran, Welding Process Engineer; Rob Eatwell, Quality Manager

A precision tubing manufacturer has been awarded a Nadcap accreditation for chemical processing. This is the fourth Nadcap approval awarded to Fine Tubes; its first accreditation was for heat treating in 2004, followed by nondestructive testing (ultrasonic testing) in 2005 and fusion welding in 2013. In addition, the Plymouth (UK)-based manufacturer anticipates receiving another accreditation for fluid distribution systems shortly.

Nadcap is an internationally recognised accreditation system that covers the key manufacturing and production processes used within the aerospace industry.

Very few companies hold four Nadcap accreditations simultaneously.

Chemical processing is a critical part of the Fine Tubes production process. Tubes must be chemically milled after the cold-working and heat-treating manufacturing processes, by being etched to ensure they meet the customer specification requirements.

“The tubing we manufacture is designed to withstand in-process fatigue loading, and failure is not an option.  When aircraft manufacturers need tubing, they inevitably look for suppliers who can demonstrate the most-stringent quality standards. Nadcap accreditation is widely viewed as confirmation of that, and, so with every Nadcap accreditation that we earn, we further enhance our ability to win new contracts,” comments David Killoran, representing the Fine Tubes’ technical team.

To achieve its latest accreditation, Fine Tubes undertook an intensive on-site inspection and investigation by a Nadcap auditor. This audit covers all aspects of the process – the machinery, consumables, and methods employed, as well as the qualifications and experience of the staff involved in the process.

“The auditor found no failures to comply with the Nadcap criteria, and that is a major credit to the Fine Tubes production team involved in the audit,” said Dr. Abdul Saeid, Process Engineer at Fine Tubes.

Fine Tubes and its US-based sister company, Superior Tube, are units of AMETEK Specialty Metal Products and both have supplied the aerospace industry with high-performance tubes for more than fifty years. Their precision tubes are used in airframes, aircraft engines and aerospace instrumentation, where they are relied upon to withstand the most-critical operating conditions.

 

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Solar Atmospheres in South Carolina Now Nadcap Approved

Solar Atmospheres Southeast has successfully completed its first round of surveillance audits for maintaining its AS9100 and Nadcap accreditations.  Solar also expanded its scope of Nadcap approval to include Low Pressure Vacuum Carburizing to meet growing aerospace carburizing needs in the Southeast US.

Steve Prout, President of Solar Atmospheres Southeast states: “We are proud to be taking this next step in our start up plan to be able to offer Low Pressure Vacuum Carburizing services alongside the rest of our Nadcap approved scope of thermal processing capabilities.  We are excited that once again we are able to offer the Southeast US another regional option for aerospace processing that did not exist previously.”

With thermal processing in furnaces ranging from those suited for small lots and development cycles to a 6-1/2 foot diameter by 24 foot long vacuum chamber capable of processing up to 50,000 lbs at 2400°F, Solar Atmospheres is backed by AS9100 and Nadcap quality systems to provide our customers the confidence that their product is being processed appropriately.

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