Reducing measurement error when making thermocouple transmitter connections
The thermocouple (TC) is a thermo-electric device used to measure temperature and nearly two-thirds of U.S. temperature measurement makes use of thermocouples. Most industrial...
Selecting the correct industrial ovens for finishing applications
Finishing is defined as “completing the manufacture or decoration of a material or product by giving it an attractive surface appearance.” In industrial applications,...
Carburized steel mechanical properties: Case tensile strength
Editor’s note » This is part one of a three-part series on carburized steel mechanical properties.
Carburizing is a mature heat-treating process commonly used for...
The Advantages of an All-Metal Vacuum Furnace Hot Zone
For more than 70 years, the vacuum furnace has been available for metal processing requirements, and is widely accepted as the ideal equipment for...
Ceramic fiber: High temperature insulation solution
Ceramic fiber is essential in various industries involving high-temperature operations. It offers superior thermal resistance for protecting structures, equipment, and machinery from steel and...
Controlling Distortion in Heat Treatment Through Press Quenching
Introduction
Press quenching is a specialized quenching technique that may be utilized to minimize the distortion of complex geometrical components during heat treatment1. Distortion is...
Innovation for saving energy and improving output
The harsh economic climate of 2020 had a direct impact upon ferrous and non-ferrous metal producers, as well as those companies involved in the...
Case Study: Cost effective, low distortion carburizing of internal helical ring gear for transmissions
There are many critical factors that are assessed when designing a gear that will be used in demanding applications such as engines or transmissions....
Freezing Out the Competition
Most companies are looking for a secret that can help them keep a step ahead of the competition — a little edge to run...
Properties of Cases Treated with High-Temperature Vacuum Carburization
Carburizing continues to be one of the basic thermochemical treatments used for industrial steel. With the development of the industry, carburizing has evolved from...
Inductive Fixture Hardening and Tempering Process for Dimensionally Accurate Parts
Automobile manufacturers increasingly require components with greater accuracy for use in sophisticated applications. To meet these increased requirements, press hardening was developed, and there...
Nitrogen gas quenching pressure effect on BS S155 alloy steel in a vacuum furnace
The production of metal and alloy products requires the use of heat treatment. During the heat-treatment process, quenching is a crucial step. The quenching...
Carbon-neutral insulation for high-temperature applications
In January 2022, Mantec Technical Ceramics, based in Stoke-on-Trent, U.K., launched carbon neutral versions of its super-insulative Ultralite material, and this has been met...
Integrating 3D printing into prototyping and production scenarios
At the recent TCT 3Sixty event in Birmingham, England, 3DPRINTUK ran a competition offering vouchers to be used against the cost of future 3D...
An In-Depth Look at Polymer Quenchants
Quenching of various alloys to achieve mechanical properties has been an area of scientific research for many years. Using polymer quenchants has proven to...
Combustion optimization in gas burners of reverberatory Furnaces during nickel-alloy melting
In recent years, due to climate change, environmental sustainability programs have been created that require the search for alternatives to reduce air emissions and...
Case Study: Busch LLC and Vakuum-Harterei Petter GmbH
Vakuum-Härterei Petter GmbH (VHP) based in Quickborn, Germany, is a contract hardening facility that specializes in high-quality heat treatment under vacuum. The company has...
Quenching: A long and varied history
There have been many myths concerning the quenchants used by ancient blacksmiths in the heat treatment of swords and knives. Various liquids have been...
Potential of nitrogen atomized alloy 625 in the powder bed fusion laser beam process
Powder-based metal additive manufacturing processes like powder bed fusion — laser beam use gas-atomized metal powders as feedstock material. Typically, for nickel-based alloys such...
A review of lubricant removal systems and the latest technology
Whether a component is produced through binder-jet additive manufacturing, metal injection molding, or conventional press and sintering, lubricant removal continues to be one of...
Improved Materials and Enhanced Fatigue Resistance for Gear Components
For decades, the gear industry has addressed the challenge to produce high-performance components in a cost-effective manner. To meet design intent, vehicle transmission components...
Case study: Improving cooling tunnel performance
The Mt. Holly, South Carolina, smelting facility of global producer Century Aluminum houses casting equipment to process nearly 230,000 metric tons of material into...
Process gas: Understanding partial pressure and convection heat treating
Designed to pump out atmospheric gases at the beginning of a heat-treating process, while also being capable of introducing process gases to reach specific...
Investigating a new cooling technology for electric vehicles
The electric vehicle (EV) revolution is well underway: It’s estimated the number of EVs populating U.S. roads alone will double by 2024. And though...
Sintering experiments under way on International Space Station
Gravity is a nonuniform stress that influences sintering densification, microstructure evolution, final properties, and dimensional uniformity. An early conjecture was that in the absence...
How to tame a plasma: Power-delivery solutions for top process issues
Film quality, throughput, yield, etch uniformity, and sidewall control all depend on the ability to ignite, maintain, and control a stable plasma. Precise, nimble...
A posteriori reconstruction of the temperature distribution in surface hardened tempering steel
Process control in surface hardening depends greatly on the repeatability of the results. Induction heating facilities stand out in this aspect but challenges arise...
Commercial sintering of chromium powder metallurgy (PM) steels
Chromium was introduced as a potential alloying element for powder metallurgy (PM) steels in the 1990s. Since then, numerous chromium-containing alloy systems have been...
Lightweight refractory lining for optimum energy efficiency in high-temperature processes
All industrial sectors with high-temperature processes, from ceramics to metal and steel, face major challenges related to energy and environmental issues, including the need...
Heat Treatment of Large Components
Large gear components can be offered in many applications such as marine, wind power, steel rolling mills, power plants, transportation, railroad, aircraft, cement crushers,...
Critical areas in vacuum heat treat furnace preventive maintenance
Vacuum furnaces require regularly scheduled, routine preventative maintenance for three main reasons: First, to ensure planned results are realized after the heat-treating process. Second,...
Filament-Wound Composites Have Specialized Curing Requirements
Filament winding is a manufacturing method for making tubular and cylindrical shapes of extreme strength and light weight. The technology involves wrapping a mandrel...
Cures for Heat Treaters Headaches
Heat treaters all over the world encounter similar problems with atmosphere furnaces. These problems not only cause operational headaches in the daily lives of...
The role of in-situ techniques in microstructure optimization of interstitially alloyed steels
Microstructure optimization of steel for improved performance requires detailed knowledge of the thermal response of the materials. When designing heat treatments of new materials...
Deep Cryogenic Treatment
What is deep cryogenic treatment? Deep cryogenic treatment (DCT) of steels and other materials is a distinct process that uses the application of extreme...
Purpose-built forged parts optimized for ‘end use’
When forging seamless rolled rings for diverse sectors such as industrial machinery, pulp and paper, turbines, and oil and gas exploration, it is crucial...
Reducing Gear Size for Compact Transmission Design by Selecting Steel Grade and Heat Treatment...
Gears are the most important components for transmissions. In many situations, the size of a transmission design needs to be reduced without decreasing power...
Nitrocarburizing Gears Using the ZeroFlow Method in Large-Volume Production
Retort-based nitriding and ferritic nitrocarburizing have been around a long time. Modern day challenges include providing known, repeatable hardness and surface case structures with...
Steel strength comparison: Tensile, compression, torsion, bending, shear
The strength of steel is commonly characterized by using engineering tensile strength. Typically, a dog-bone shaped test bar is pulled in the axial direction...
Induction Heat Treating: How to Shorten the Time to Production
In an increasingly competitive world, it is good to pause and ask: How can we do our work faster, better, and use fewer resources?...
