Heat Treat Today asked tip-up manufacturers to help heat treaters understand the variability of tip-up options in the market today. In this article, Gasbarre Thermal Processing Systems and Premier Furnace Specialists share unique approaches on how their own gargantuan furnaces serve heat treaters. As you read, note that customization is the critical component to operating a tip-up in your heat treat department.
This original content article is drawn from Heat Treat Today's February Air & Atmosphere Furnace Systems print edition. Have something to share about tip-up furnaces? Our editors would be interested in sharing it online at www.heattreattoday.com. Email Bethany Leone at bethany@heattreattoday.com with your own ideas!
Gasbarre Thermal Processing Systems
What is your system and how does it differ from historic tip-up systems?
Gasbarre has a unique offering of tip-up style furnaces. We offer systems for conventional applications such as austenitizing, solution treating, stress relieving, and tempering. In addition, we also offer atmosphere processes such as annealing and ferritic nitrocarburizing (FNC). For us, tip-up systems are not one-size-fits-all type systems. Systems are designed around our customer’s specific processing requirements. This would include thermal process requirements, load geometry and weight, temperature ranges and uniformity requirements, as well as time to quench specifications.
What are its operational advantages?
When evaluating a tip-up furnace system, they are typically compared against box-style furnaces and car bottom furnaces. So, what differentiates a tip-up from these other style furnaces? First, you can achieve the main goal of large capacity batch processing, while gaining advantages over box furnaces with wider temperature ranges and tighter uniformity requirements. Box furnaces are more challenging to evenly distribute heat due to the large space requirement for the furnace door, where it is difficult to include heating elements or gas fired burners. Second, you can achieve faster time-to-quench speeds in a tip-up furnace over a car bottom furnace. Car bottom furnaces require the load to be pulled out of the furnace and then the load is typically manually moved from the furnace hearth to the quench. In a tip-up, this process can be automated and completed in 60 seconds or less. Finally, when special atmosphere processes are required, a tip-up furnace offers a superior atmosphere seal to the other furnaces mentioned. With tip-up furnaces, you can seal the furnace using its own weight. Other furnaces require additional mechanical assemblies to achieve a proper seal, which ultimately is more susceptible to leaks and requires more maintenance than a tip-up furnace seal.
Source: Gasbarre Thermal Processing Systems
Why should people be paying attention to what you have to offer?
Gasbarre’s broad product offering gives us the ability to evaluate your requirements objectively and offer the best solution for you and your company, whether that be box furnace, car bottom, or tip-up. Tip-up furnace systems are usually not one-off installations. These systems usually involve quenching equipment, material handling, load staging, and other integration. Gasbarre has the experience and personnel to manage such large projects and support the customer to effectively implement a system.
Premier Furnace Specialists
What is your system and how does it differ from historic tip-up systems?
The controls and automation capabilities of our furnaces set us above many older systems still in use today. On the control panel of an older system, you’re likely to see paper chart recorders, maybe a PanelView screen, and dozens of switches, pushbuttons, and pilot lights. Some of our customers prefer these control systems for their familiarity, and that’s fine because we are capable of building this style of enclosure, but most come to us for improvements or new systems entirely. Our standard panel comes with a 23.8” color touchscreen display that lets operators manage or record almost every aspect of the furnace’s operation. This package can be added to existing furnaces as well, as we have performed many control and combustion upgrades on older systems to keep them functional and reduce operating costs. We also offer tip-up furnaces that operate via jackscrews for customers who want to avoid the maintenance and flammability of hydraulics.
Source: Premier Furnace Specialists
Modern burner technology also offers a massive improvement over older systems. With rising energy costs for all fuel types, any increase in efficiency will quickly become a source of savings which can be redirected into other areas of your company. Improvements to burner design offer increased preheat, recuperative, and regenerative possibilities, which offer fuel savings across multiple temperature ranges and reduce emissions to keep in line with changing regulations. A standard burner can heat up and cool down faster, take less time to tune, and reduce maintenance hours and headaches compared to older models of burners with knowledgeable air and gas train design coupled with modern burners.
What are its operational advantages?
Our systems allow greater flexibility for integration with existing and future equipment as well as simplified operation. One of the largest complaints we hear in every industry is about the struggle to retain maintenance and equipment operators’ knowledge once a senior member leaves a company. For this reason, it is important to have a simplified controls interface that allows new operators to get up to speed quickly. As a service company as well as an OEM, we have extensive experience working on and upgrading many brands of equipment. This enables us to easily integrate our solutions to match what customers are familiar with while also reducing maintenance requirements.
Source: Premier Furnace Specialists
Why should people be paying attention to what you have to offer?
Despite OEMs trying to convince you, sometimes a standard “cookie cutter” model just isn’t the right fit for a job. It can take years to build up a budget for a new furnace system. Don’t invest those hard earned dollars into a piece of equipment that won’t do everything you need, exactly how you need it done. We are willing to take on the jobs that require creative solutions and extensive automation. Premier’s custom engineered systems live up to our namesake. Some of our recent projects have included a 130 ft long roller hearth furnace system with automated cooling/sequencing/handling of over 40 loads simultaneously; and a car bottom furnace with a 15’ x 15’ x 15’ work chamber capable of controlled heating and cooling of 160,000-pound loads.
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