ANNEALING

Best of the Web: Precise Control of Protective Atmospheres

Source: Super Systems, Inc.

Achieving the elimination of oxidation during thermal treatment has driven heat treaters for decades and resulted in a wide variety of approaches. The obvious method is to flow an inert gas such as nitrogen into the furnace in order to drive out both air and moisture. By itself, however, this technique is inadequate.

The zirconia carbon sensor has been used for nearly three decades to control the carbon potential in many carburizing applications. Today’s best of the web article examines the use of the zirconia carbon sensor in a variety of annealing and special treatment applications and considers how the sensor millivolt output is preferred because it relates directly (not empirically) to the free oxygen concentration in the surrounding environment.

An Excerpt:

“While it is desirable to avoid oxidation during thermal treatment, the achievement of adequate control using one of the ‘getter’ gases requires that the sensor millivolts achieved be established at some value higher than the vee formed by the iron reaction at temperatures below 1375ºF and the carbon reaction above that temperature. The vee will demonstrate the lower limit, but the practical level should be established by evaluation of product quality, getter cost and possible sooting. The appropriate level will be limited by such things as furnace leaks, atmosphere agitation, work porosity, time of treatment, etc.”

Read the entire article from Super Systems, Inc., by clicking here: “Precise Control of Protective Atmospheres


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News from Abroad: New Equipment, Waste Management, and Thermal Processes

Heat Treat Today is partnering with two international publications: heat processing, a Vulkan-Verlag GmbH publication that serves mostly the European and Asian heat treat markets, and Furnaces International, a Quartz Business Media publication that primarily serves the English-speaking globe. Through these partnerships, we are sharing the latest news, tech tips, and cutting-edge articles that will serve our audience — manufacturers with in-house heat treat.

In this article, we look at annealing equipment, innovation in waste management, and thermal processes in Li-ion batteries.


Investing in production of high-performance electrical steel in Shanghai
Source: Baowa

New Electrical Steel Lines for EV Motors

“Fives, a leading engineering group with broad expertise in steel processing and technology, has designed and delivered thermal sections for a new annealing and pickling line (APL) and two new annealing and coating lines (ACL). The lines, designed to produce high quality non-grain oriented (NGO) grades for electric vehicle motors, delivered their first coil between December 2022 and February 2023.”

Read More: “Fives and Baowu launch new electrical steel lines” at heat-processing.com

Addressing the issue of plastic waste mgmt.
Source: worldsteel

Successful Trials Will Help Manufacturer Reduce Carbon Footprint

“Integrated steel manufacturer JSW Steel has accomplished a ‘significant breakthrough in environmental sustainability’ by successfully injecting waste plastic into Blast Furnace 3 at its Vijayanagar steel plant following extensive trials.”

Read More: “JSW Steel successfully completes waste plastic injection trial” at furnaces-international.com

Left to right: Huang Ligang, general manager, Kilnpartner; Zhang Yuejin,
Chairman of the board, Kilnpartner; Michael Reisner, CEO, Aichelin Ges.m.b.H.;
Christian Grosspointner, CEO, Aichelin Holding; and Fan Xiaochun, CEO,
Kilnpartner, after signing the contract.
Source: Aichelin

AICHELIN Cooperation Agreement

“The thermal processes used to treat the essential components of Li-ion batteries represent a key technology in this process. These include the cathode as LFP (lithium iron phosphate) or NMC (nickel manganese cobalt) and the active anode material. Only through a highly accurate heat treatment can the crystal structure and morphology of the material be trimmed to ‘peak performance.’ In order to achieve this goal, each manufacturer has its own processes. The common basic requirement is flexible and reliable plant technology, the so-called ‘kilns.’”

Read More: “New heat treatment cooperation for battery materials” at heat-processing.com


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New Material Retains High Transmissivity After Heat Treatment, Applied to Optical Devices

 

Source: Phys.Org

 

Researchers at Toyohashi University of Technology have collaborated with their counterparts at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to develop a new material capable of retaining high transmissivity after annealing at 850°C (1562°F). The results address the challenge manufacturers face when combining different materials that react differently to heat treatment at certain temperatures.

Read more: “High-Refractive-Index Material Retains High Transmissivity After Annealing at 850 Degrees C”

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Novelis, Kobe Steel Join Forces with South Korea Heat-Treat Facility

Novelis Inc. announced in May that it has entered into a joint venture agreement with Kobe Steel, Ltd., a producer of aluminum rolled products in Japan. The joint venture, to be named Ulsan Aluminum, Ltd., will be formed by Novelis selling Kobe Steel 50 percent of its ownership interest in its Ulsan, South Korea facility for US $315 million. Through the venture, Novelis and Kobe Steel will jointly own and operate the Ulsan facility, with each company remaining responsible for its metal supply and commercial relationships.

Located in the industrial hub of Korea, Novelis’ Ulsan facility currently focuses on the production of rolled aluminum sheet for a variety of markets in Asia. The plant recently completed a major expansion, adding a new three-stand hot finishing mill as well as a pusher furnace and annealing furnaces.

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Heat Treating of Jaw Fixation Plates Provides Superelasticity

  Source:  Bioengineering

Process parameters and post-processing heat treatment techniques have been developed to produce both shape memory and superelastic NiTi using additive manufacturing. By introducing engineered porosity, the stiffness of NiTi can be tuned to the level closely matching cortical bone. Using additively manufactured porous superelastic NiTi, we have proposed the use of patient-specific, stiffness-matched fixation hardware, for mandible skeletal reconstructive surgery.

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Majority of Heat Treatment Done In-House at SKF — New Equipment Purchased

Ipsen recently installed both atmosphere and vacuum heat-treating systems at SKF’s state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in St. Louis, Missouri. With the relocation of their existing facility to a new location, SKF continues to focus on enhancing the quality, efficiency and overall effectiveness of their heat-treating equipment. Among this new Ipsen equipment was a complete ATLAS atmosphere heat-treating system, including two ATLAS integral quench batch furnaces and ancillary equipment – washer, temper, endo generator, loader/unloader and a feed-in/feed-out station. SKF also purchased a TITAN® vacuum heat-treating system to round out their production capabilities.

Heat-treating is considered a core competency at SKF, and this new equipment will allow them to bring the majority of heat treatment in-house and efficiently handle the increase they’ve seen in production demands and volume of parts. Reflecting on the equipment purchased and what appealed to SKF, Bryan Stanford said, “Initially, I would say it was the general purposefulness of these Ipsen products that appealed to us. We run a very large variety of parts and batch quantities here. A custom solution designed to run tens of thousands of the same parts was not going to work for us. We wanted a low-cost, off-the-shelf-type solution that would allow us the flexibility we required – which is what the ATLAS and TITAN delivered. Now after having performed some pre-training, I would say what stands out the most is the ease of use and control of the equipment.”

The ATLAS batch furnaces feature a 24″ W x 36″ D x 30″ H (610 mm x 910 mm x 760 mm) load size with an 1,100-pound (500 kg) load capacity. They also operate at temperatures of 1,400 °F to 1,800 °F (750 °C to 980 °C) and have a quench oil capacity of 1,030 gallons (3,900 L). The TITAN vacuum furnace features an 18″ W x 24″ D x 18″ H (455 mm x 610 mm x 455 mm) load size with a 1,000-pound (454 kg) load capacity. It operates at temperatures of 1,000 °F to 2,400 °F (538 °C to 1,316 °C). Overall, this Ipsen equipment will be used for carburizing, carbonitriding, brazing and annealing and will process a wide variety of parts that support SKF’s Lubrication Business Unit.

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Heat Treat TV: 48′ Vacuum Furnace Installed in Western Pennsylvania

Take a look at this fascinating time-lapse video of a 48 foot vacuum furnace being installed at a leading commercial heat treat shop in western Pennsylvania. The furnace was manufactured by Solar Manufacturing and will be used for vacuum processing very large, long, and/or heavy aerospace, automotive and energy sector parts. Watch it now by clicking here or on the image below.

Solar Atmospheres' 48' Vacuum Furnace 2

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