ASB Industries, Barberton, Ohio, announces that its Heavy Duty Grinder, which is five feet in diameter and 24 feet long, will be modernized at a cost of approximately $400,000. Rebuild will begin in June and is expected to take approximately six months. This major capital investment will allow two-axis grinding for complex roll crowns with extreme accuracy and efficiency.   Thermal Spray surfacing materials require different grinding media to achieve critical surface finishes.

Alcoa Aerospace, Pittsburgh, announces that it has upgraded and expanded aluminum-lithium casting capacity at the Kitts Green plant in England. It has also expanded capacity by 30% at its Technology Center in Alcoa Center, Pa. The third phase of the expansion is a new $90 million facility under construction adjacent to the plant in Lafayette, Ind., that will provide an additional 20,000 metric tons of aluminum lithium.

GE Aviation, Cincinnati, will invest $27 million to develop advanced manufacturing methods for ceramic matrix composites at its plant in Newark, Del. Engineers at GE Global Research designed machines that coat the ceramic fibers, compress the fibers into tapes, and mold the tapes into shaped panels that are then fused in a furnace. The process can produce parts such as turbine shrouds, combustor liners, turbine blades, and fairings.

Ambrell Inc., Scottsdale, N.Y., is exhibiting its Easyheat induction heating system with robotics from Nutek Industrial Systems, Broadview Heights, Ohio, at the Heat Treat Expo. Additionally, tooling from Induction Tooling (ITI) will be on display in booth 2102, and a newly designed modular Ekoheat will be exhibited.   The Ekoheat line now offers power up to 1.2 MW, enabling the product line to address higher power heat treating applications.

Thermal Spray Technologies, Sun Prairie, Wis., has celebrated one million hours with no lost time.. “One million hours with no lost time is a notable accomplishment in an industry with a high potential for injury,” said John Fehl, a member of the Thermal Spray Technologies production team. Generally, manufacturing companies experience workplace injuries every one to two months.

ALD Vacuum Technologies, East Windsor, Conn., has developed SyncroTherm, a system that enables integrating heat treatment directly into the machining production line. The heat treatment of large batches is converted to treatment of single components, where parts are charged in one layer on one workpiece carrier. The flat-panel radiators installed in top and bottom radiate the heat directly onto each part, heating the “2D-charges” rapidly and homogeneously.

It is only a couple of molecules thick, and could not be thinner: the sheet of glass that scientists at the University of Ulm, Germany and Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., discovered by accident. This discovery was acknowledged as a world record with an entry in Guinness World Records 2014. “Although glass is indeed transparent, the individual silicon and oxygen atoms can be made visible under the electron microscope,” explains Ute Kaiser, professor of experimental physics at Ulm.

Metallisation, UK, has developed a durable non-slip thermally sprayed coating called 28E Arctec. It is a reinforced aluminum-based non-slip coating ideal for flooring areas, bridge decks, escalators, steel floors, and panels across a range of industries. It can be applied with a rough texture and has excellent non-slip properties, while being extremely hard and resistant to wear and corrosion.   28E Arctec is applied by the Metallisation arcspray process with the ARC 140 system.

U.S. Chrome, Stratford, Conn., announces that it will scale up commercial production of its family of TriCom electroplating technologies. TriCom-H is based on a composite microstructure of a cobalt-phosphorus alloy matrix with uniformly dispersed fine silicon carbide particles. Offering extremely high hardness and high wear resistance, it represents a drop-in replacement for hard chrome, without environmental drawbacks, according to company sources.

Carpenter Technology Corp., Wyomissing, Pa., announces that it will build its new superalloy powder facility in Alabama, directly across the street from its nearly completed $518 million ultra-premium product manufacturing facility near Athens. Three weeks ago, Carpenter announced a multi-faceted agreement with United Technologies Corp.

ALD Vacuum Technologies, Germany, has developed the Vacuum Induction Degassing (VID) furnace concept for special applications in the ferrous and non-ferrous metals industry for charge weights up to 30 tons. Smaller steel shops and foundries will be able to produce high quality vacuum treated steels with the VID furnace in one step. The temperature losses during degassing treatment are compensated by induction heating.

Composite industry leaders from around the globe will return this fall to the second edition of the JEC Americas Composites Show & Conferences at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, Oct. 2-4, 2013.

The University of Manchester, UK, has received $28 million from the UK Research Partnership Investment Fund (UKRPIF) to set up a state-of-the-art Multidisciplinary Characterization Facility.  The new facility at Manchester will focus on the United Kingdom’s strategic development in advanced materials and manufacturing, and will provide the necessary expertise to accelerate innovation from the laboratory to market.

Dr. Aziz Asphahani, FASM, is joining QuesTek Innovations LLC, Evanston, Ill., as the new chief executive officer effective July 1, 2013. He will lead the company’s efforts in growth and business development. Asphahani has an extensive background in both metallurgy and business, having acted as Director of Technology/R&D at Cabot Corporation, vice president of sales and marketing at Haynes International, and President at both CABVAL and CARUS Chemical Company.

Sikorsky Aircraft, Stratford, Conn.,  has completed the initial phase of testing for the composite main and tail rotor blades manufactured for the U.S. Marine Corps CH-53K heavy lift helicopter program. At 35 ft span length, and almost 3 ft chord width, the CH-53K main rotor blade has 12% more surface area than the CH-53E blade.

ASB Industries, Barberton, Ohio, announces that its Mesta heavy duty grinder (60 in. diameter by 288 in. long) is to be rebuilt and modernized. This major capital investment will allow two-axis grinding for complex roll crowns with extreme accuracy and efficiency. The project will include CNC Controls Fagor 8065T for two-axis wheel movement, and a Renishaw Touch Probe for data collection, keeping roll history during refurbishments.