Thermofusion

MIT-Backed Startup Tackles Heat Treaters’ High Electricity Bills

A group of graduates from MIT and Duke University identified manufacturing as an industry overburdened by rapidly growing energy costs and proposed a technology to provide electric bill savings of up to 30%. They will be piloting this technology with a U.S. heat treater, ThermoFusion, a Californian heat treater and brazer.

EQORE, a startup tackling energy issues for manufacturers, is developing smart energy storage systems. They aim to cut industrial energy bills by a third while offering a payback period of 1–3 years. Connected behind the meter, an EQORE system serves as an optimizing filter for electric equipment without changing its operation in any way. The system consists of a wall-mounted computing unit and a compact floor-mounted battery pack. It can be installed inside or outside of a facility and only needs a connection to the electric panel and internet.

The founding team features backgrounds in energy storage engineering from Tesla and Apple, as well as software and business development, and is supported by an innovation fund at MIT. The technology specifically targets reducing demand charges, which can account for 60–70% of industrial electricity costs. Demand charges penalize high variability in electric usage, a characteristic of heat treating facilities like ThermoFusion. For these facilities, a single peak in power usage can drastically increase the entire bill. Remarkably, in some locations in the U.S., demand rates have doubled since 2022. 

After talking to over 200 businesses, utility representatives, and energy experts, the team concluded that the solutions to the demand issue remain limited. Available power optimizations disrupt customer operations, while independent power generation like solar is often out of reach due to its decade-long repayment periods. EQORE’s solution empowers clients to reduce energy costs while maintaining existing production levels.

Their team is actively looking to engage with more pilot customers and is open to collaborations.  

The original press release is available upon request.


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A Dozen Quick Heat Treat News Items to Keep You Current

A 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

  • Richard Cammarano has been selected as president and CEO of Plymouth, Massachusetts-based Tech-Etch Inc., which produces precision components and parts.
  • With KKR’s recent acquisition of Hyperion from Sandvik, Ron Voigt will assume the role of Chief Executive Officer of Hyperion, responsible for the strategic direction and operating performance of the company. Mr. Voigt succeeds Johan Israelsson, who is transitioning into a newly created role as Senior Vice President of Strategy and Alliances.
  • Boeing and Embraer recently announced a Memorandum of Understanding to establish a strategic partnership which proposes the formation of a joint venture comprising the commercial aircraft and services business of Embraer that would strategically align with Boeing’s commercial development, production, marketing and lifecycle services operations. Under the terms of the agreement, Boeing will hold an 80 percent ownership stake in the joint venture and Embraer will own the remaining 20 percent stake.
  • With the construction of an 85,000-square-foot facility, Hitchiner Manufacturing Co., Inc., which produces investment castings for the aerospace, defense, and automotive industries, is expanding its New Hampshire operations .

Equipment Chatter

  • Four electrically heated enhanced duty walk-in ovens have been shipped to an automotive parts manufacturer by Wisconsin Oven Corporation, to be used for aging aluminum parts. In addition, Wisconsin Oven shipped an electrically heated three drawer oven to a supplier of the oil and gas industry. The custom drawer oven will be used for preheating tubes and cores.
  • Eighteen furnaces have been shipped to companies in six states in the U.S. and two companies overseas by Ipsen USA during the second quarter. These shipments included multiple atmosphere furnaces, plus the shipment of one of the largest vacuum furnaces Ipsen has ever built, featuring a 210,000-pound (95,254 kg) load capacity. Ten atmosphere box furnaces were shipped to a company in the aerospace industry, while one temper furnace went to a U.S.-based commercial heat treater. Other shipments included three TITAN H2 2-bar furnaces and three TITAN H6 2-bar furnaces.
  • A major US manufacturer of electronic components has placed an order for Despatch PND inert atmosphere ovens with FLW Southeast.
  • Two electric box furnaces have been supplied by L&L Special Furnace Company to a Midwestern machine manufacturer that builds high-speed cutting equipment, tools, and supplies for various industries, including industrial manufacturing, automotive, metal materials, and aerospace.
  • A 950°F (510°C) belt conveyor oven from Grieve, No. 831, has been supplied to a company to be used for heat treating springs.

Kudos Chatter

  • ThermoFusion is the only heat treater in Northern California to maintain Supplier Procedure Approval Requests (SPAR) for carbonitriding, nitriding, malcomizing, and general quench and temper work for Northrop Grumman.
  • Fluxtrol Inc. presented two awards during TPiM 2018. The Student Research Award was presented to Virginia Judge from the Colorado School of Mines, whose research was deemed by judges to be of extraordinary quality and impact to the field of thermal processing. The Academic Research Award/Scholarship was awarded to Professor Bob Cryderman and the Colorado School of Mines for excellence in academic research in the field of thermal processing.
  • Sciaky, Inc., a leading provider of metal additive manufacturing (AM) solutions, recently announced that it achieved qualification with its Electron Beam Additive Manufacturing (EBAM®) process, stemming from the completion of qualification testing performed by Lockheed Martin Space on a multi-year development program to create giant, high-pressure tanks, which carry fuel for satellites.

 

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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California Heat Treater Expands with New Furnaces, Endo Generator

 

A California-based, full-service brazing and heat treating company recently installed several pieces of equipment, including an indirect temper furnace as well as a generator that has clocked less downtime than the previous unit.

Nick Schreiber, Quality Manager of ThermoFusion; Glen Ottinger, President of ThermoFusion; and Jeff McLaughlin, owner of McLaughlin Furnaces and Equipment

ThermoFusion’s investment of the 2200 Tru-Mix Generator and indirect temper furnace, both McLaughlin Services products, are part of the company’s commitment to support customers in the automotive, aerospace, medical, and energy industries, as well as for multiple other application.

The Tru-Mix 220 is supporting two of ThermoFusion’s internal quench furnaces and a high-temperature tool furnace, almost twice as much equipment as the generator it replaced. According to Glen Ottinger, president of ThermoFusion, the results were better than he had anticipated when researching the 2200 Tru-Mix and other gas generators.

The McLaughlin Indirect Temper Furnace was fully functional and ready for operations only two days after arrival, according to Nick Schreiber, quality manager at ThermoFusion, and has been surveyed at +/- 10F or less, between 300ºF and 1400ºF.

 

 

 

Photo credit: ThermoFusion

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Joe Powell Comments on Marquenching and Austempering

Last week, we ran a news release about ThermoFusion in California expanding their heat treat capabilities to include marquenching and austempering (click here to see that release). In that short article, some comments were made about the aggressiveness of various quench methods and their effect on distortion and cracking.

Joe Powell, of Akron Steel Treating Company, Integrated Heat Treating Solutions, LLC, IQDI Products, LTD., and IQ Technologies Inc, one of the heat treat industry’s foremost experts on quenching, wrote in to help educate all of us a bit more on the finer points of quenching. Below are his comments. Joe can be reached at JoePowell@akronsteeltreating.com.

 

Doug,

In your recent article, you stated that Marquenching and Austempering use a “less aggressive” quench cooling rate, “and reduce distortion caused by rapid temperature change (thermal shock)” which is only half true.  The main mechanism that allow a molten salt quench to reduce distortion is the elimination of mixed phase cooling – there is no slow film boiling (gas) phase cooling mixed with the high-evaporative cooing phase of nucleate boiling, but only a single phase of all liquid convection cooling.   It’s the non-uniformity of cooling at the surface of the part that will distort or crack the part not so much the rate of cooling.

Joe

Joseph A. Powell, President
Akron Steel Treating Company

Integrated Heat Treating Solutions, LLC
IQDI Products, LTD. 
IQ Technologies Inc

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