Leica Microsystems, Germany, a leader in microscopy and scientific instrumentation, has launched Autonomous Microscopy powered by Aivia, a new AI-based detection workflow for confocal microscopy that automates the detection of rare events by extracting the most relevant data from their experiments.
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Gas nitriding and nitrocarburizing processes can be processed with fixed gasifying amounts of ammonia, nitrogen, and, for nitrocarburizing, a carburizing and oxidizing agent. However, this does not produce consistent results if different load surfaces are treated with the same fixed gasifying amounts. Furthermore, especially for nitriding processes, the ammonia gasifying has to be reduced or diluted with nitrogen after several hours because the nitrogen uptake of a load decreases. Another quite popular method, usually called the “Floe process,” is a two-step nitriding, where two different nitriding temperatures and different gas flows allow adjustment of the nitriding potential (KN) to the requirements.
Therefore, modern gas nitriding and nitrocarburizing furnaces are equipped with sensor systems and a process control unit that allow the measurement and automatic control of the nitriding potential (KN). The figure shows a schematic of a typical horizontal retort furnace. Similar to the vertical execution, a good circulation of the process gas is needed to get uniform results, which can be reached by the use of a muffle and a high circulation rate. Indirect cooling is performed with an external cooling fan, blowing cold air along the retort.
For more information, click on the link below (subscription required). Then scroll to Figure 24
R Schneider; R. Mesquita; H. Altena; T. Müller; P. Seemann, Processes and Furnace Equipment for Heat Treating of Tool Steels, ASM International, 2014, https://doi.org/10.31399/asm.hb.v04d.a0005958
Solar Atmospheres, Fontana, Calif., has announced that they are now Airbus approved for heat treating.
Frank Trujillo, director of Sales for Solar Atmospheres of California, stated that, “Many Airbus suppliers were in need of a heat treater in the West that could process parts, plates and bars in support of increased Airbus production rates. SCA is proud to be a partner on the Airbus Team!”
With our wide range of furnaces, we are capable of processing very small pieces or loads of 50,000 pounds and up to 24 feet in length. This approval will translate into improved lead-times and greater efficiencies for all Airbus suppliers that require heat treat services in the Western Region.
Nitrex Vacuum, Quebec, has installed a turnkey nitriding system at Akademi Metalurji, a full-service commercial heat-treating solutions provider located in Turkey. The project includes a mid-sized pit-type furnace, advanced controls, three process technologies along with accelerated cooling.
The decision to invest in a new nitriding system was driven by the company’s objective to overcome efficiency and quality challenges faced with their previous furnace at the Gebze facility. The prior system consumed excessive amounts of process gases and yielded inconsistent nitriding results. With the addition of a Nitrex NX-1015 pit furnace, Akademi Metalurji can now save on process gases and production time, while also expanding their heat treatment capabilities to accommodate wider-dimensioned parts. The nitriding furnace offers an effective work zone of 39” diameter by 59” high (1000 x 1500 mm) and can handle a load of up to 4400 lbs. (2000 kg). The supplied library of Nitreg-based recipes is tailored to meet different application requirements, resulting in a hardened surface that is highly wear-resistant. For applications like machinery components, tooling, dies, and molds, where Akademi Metalurji specializes, Nitreg delivers improved tooling performance, ensuring longer service life and higher throughput. Ultimately, this leads to tool cost savings for their customers.
The system was successfully installed at the Gebze facility, located southeast of Istanbul, and commenced operations in April 2023. Since then, it has been running smoothly, delivering excellent results.
Wisconsin Oven, East Troy, announced the shipment of an Electrically Heated Horizontal Quench System to a manufacturer of products for the automotive industry. This system will be used for the solution treatment of aluminum.
The maximum temperature for this horizontal quench furnace is 1200°F and interior chamber dimensions of 2′ wide x 2′ high x 2′ long. The system has the capacity to heat 450 pounds of aluminum parts and the steel basket within 60 minutes. Temperature uniformity of +/- 10°F at set points 850°F and 1050° F was verified with a nine point profile test prior to shipment.
This horizontal quench system provides a 15 second quench delay from when the door begins to open until the load is fully submerged in the tank. The quench is manual, where the operator pulls the load out of the oven and onto the quench elevator using a hook. The quench delay time is recorded and enforced using sensors to detect the start and end of the quench operation, and to stop the process if the quench delay time expires.
Quintus Technologies, Vasteras, Sweden, announced that they will supply a high pressure fluid cell press to France’s LAUAK Group, a Tier 1 supplier to the aerospace industry. The press will be installed at the LAUAK Aerostructures factory in Grandola, Portugal, in September 2023.
Reaffirming its continued commitment to productivity enhancement, LAUAK selected the Quintus model QFC 0.7×1.8-800 press with high pressure technology to bolster its manufacturing efficiency. “The forming press is undoubtedly at the heart of sheet metal production,” says Mikel Charritton, LAUAK Group Managing Director. “Especially in the context of the current aerospace ramp-up, in particular the A320, A350, and B737 programs, LAUAK’s capital equipment investments are strongly influenced by the imperatives of competitiveness. This press significantly increases and secures our production capacity.” Quintus’s proprietary hydroforming process requires only one rigid tool half, an innovation that not only generates significant tool cost savings but also eliminates several forming operations, intermediate heat treatments, and operator dependencies.
Applied Materials has announced a landmark investment to build the world’s largest and most advanced facility for collaborative semiconductor process technology and manufacturing equipment research and development (R&D)
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A University of Minnesota-led team has developed a first-of-its-kind, breakthrough method that makes it easier to create high-quality metal oxide thin films out of “stubborn” metals that have historically been difficult to synthesize in an atomically precise manner.
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Hardide Coatings, UK, has entered into a partnership with Gardner Aerospace, UK, to coat key wing components for the Airbus A320 family of aircraft.
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A research team led by Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, Mass., found that by ditching toxic solvents, a new dry-coating process could make batteries more sustainable and cut manufacturing costs by 15% and energy use by 47%. It could also be faster-charging than today’s electrodes.
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Boeing, Arlington, Va., has begun construction on a new facility to house state-of-the-art, post-assembly phases of future military aircraft production.
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Gas nitriding and nitrocarburizing can be processed in horizontal or vertical chamber furnaces with refractory insulation. However, to allow a quick change of the atmosphere and to avoid influences resulting from previous processes in the same furnace, retort furnaces are preferred.
To enable an acceptable production capacity, large vertical retort furnaces are used. The figure is a schematic sketch of a vertical retort furnace with a compensator for sealing against the atmosphere. Nowadays large horizontal retort furnaces are also used. Horizontal retort furnaces of different size and execution are preferred for nitrocarburizing processes. Similar to the vertical execution, a good circulation of the process gas is needed to get uniform results, which can be reached by the use of a muffle and a high circulation rate. Indirect cooling is performed with an external cooling fan, blowing cold air along the retort. Other designs allow direct cooling of the process gas with an external heat exchanger.
For more information, click on the link below (subscription required). Then scroll to Figure 23
R Schneider; R. Mesquita; H. Altena; T. Müller; P. Seemann, Processes and Furnace Equipment for Heat Treating of Tool Steels, ASM International, 2014, https://doi.org/10.31399/asm.hb.v04d.a0005958
Seco/Warwick, Meadville, Pa., will supply a vacuum furnace specifically for the maintenance, repair, and operations (MRO) industry. The solution will be utilized for repair solutions for both complex aircraft engines and gas turbines for the energy industry in Hungary.
The furnace on order is a unique solution due to the effective size of the heating chamber. It has been adapted to the AeroSpace Power requirements and has a working area of 1300 x 1000 x 1500 mm. Thanks to this, the furnace can accommodate large components – mainly aircraft parts, as well as gas turbines for the energy sector.
The featured technology on order, in addition to non-standard dimensions, is designed to process work in the presence of two gases: argon (used for partial pressure) and nitrogen, which is used mainly in the cooling process.
Additionally, the furnace will be equipped with a dew point sensor for each of the gases. It is a system which solves one of heat treatment’s very critical operational requirements, which is to control the quality/purity of gas used during the process. Vector also features a partial pressure control system based on three gases (hydrogen, argon, and nitrogen) to help prevent evaporation and sublimation of alloying elements from the load surface during the vacuum heat treatment or vacuum brazing process.
Constellium, Paris, announced that they are participating in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Energy Star program as an Industrial Partner.
The Energy Star program is a voluntary initiative that helps businesses protect the environment by promoting energy-efficient products, homes, buildings and manufacturing plants, as well as save on energy costs. As an Industrial Partner, Constellium will work closely with the EPA to identify and implement energy-saving strategies and technologies across its manufacturing operations in the United States.
Constellium has already taken significant steps to reduce its energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. The company has set a target to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 30% by 2030 vs 2021, and reports its results annually in its sustainability report.
New research is helping scientists better understand how microstructures change, or undergo grain growth, at high temperatures, thus determining properties such as hardness. A team of materials scientists and applied mathematicians developed a mathematical model that more accurately describes such microstructures by integrating data that can be identified from highly magnified images taken during experiments.
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To shield steel from the corrosive threats posed by sea air, Sandia National Laboratories researchers tested a variety of nickel mixtures as protective coatings on stainless steel. The researchers found that the specific material applied, and the specific application process used, impacted the properties of the coating, including how protective it was against corrosion.
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Scientists have questioned how to manufacture microdevices that cannot be produced using layering and whether it is conceivable to directly print inside a pre-existing three-dimensional material.
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Scientists at the Instituto de Ciencia y Tecnologia de Polimeros (ICTP) and Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Metalurgicas (CENIM), Spain, studied corrosion control by autonomous self-healing epoxy coatings based on superabsorbent healing agents.
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Scientists have achieved a breakthrough in the development of non-volatile phase change memory.
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By exploring the many possible combinations of elements, physicists hope to find new superconductors that work at lower pressures and higher temperatures than the hydrides studied so far.
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Lindberg/MPH, Mich, a leading manufacturer of heat treat furnaces, announced the shipment of a continuous full muffle mesh belt conveyor furnace to an industrial manufacturer.
This conveyor furnace is designed for applications with a nitrogen atmosphere and a maximum temperature of 1,100°C. Additionally, the furnace has a hydrogen flow meter and combustible gas system so the customer can run a hydrogen atmosphere when needed. The combustible gas system provides a timed nitrogen gas purge of the muffle before process gas can be introduced into the furnace muffle. The conveyor furnace has overall dimensions of 128” L x 22” W 41.5” H. There are tables at both ends of the furnace for loading and unloading of the product. The unit is designed with four (4) temperature zones and a water-cooling section that parts travel through prior to exiting the chamber.
Wisconsin Oven, East Troy, Wis. announced the completion of a Horizontal Spray Quench Furnace for C/A Design located in Dover, NH. This furnace will be used for the solution treatment of aluminum. The system is designed to soak the product load at temperature in the furnace and then a pusher mechanism rapidly moves the load into the spray quench. The spray quench offers reduced distortion in comparison to submersion quenching.
The maximum temperature for this system is 1,150°F and it has sufficient capacity to heat a 200 pound aluminum load plus the work grid and product fixture. A temperature uniformity survey was documented for +/-10°F at 985°F to verify the furnace has the capability to meet AMS 2750G, Class 2 furnace and Instrumentation Type D requirements.
The spray quench is located in front of the oven and has vertical-lift, pneumatically operated doors on each end. The spray quench system utilizes fifty (50) fine mist nozzles located above, below, and on each side of the quench chamber to rapidly cool the product from all sides. Each nozzle is independently selectable from the touchscreen HMI and a variable frequency drive allows the pump speed to be adjusted to maintain a constant pressure to each spray nozzle.
Seco/Warwick, Meadville, PA, has developed a system to perform clean brazing processes in high vacuum as efficiently as possible, ensuring the highest protection of the treated part surfaces. The solution will be used to process jet engine components.
The German Partner carries out comprehensive repairs of technologically advanced jet engines. The company also has a research center which develops innovative repair techniques for various types of components and entire engines. The group employs several thousand qualified employees in various locations around the world and is a leader among companies repairing and providing full service MRO for jet engines. The purchase of a vertical vacuum furnace will improve production processes and significantly increase the commercial heat treater’s efficiency.
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A review from the School of Engineering and Technology, India, describes the increasing demand for cutting-edge materials with a high strength-to-weight ratio and economic considerations. Lightweight materials such as aluminum (Al) and its alloys are attractive, but some properties such as low thermal stability and high wear rate limit the application of aluminum alloys (AA) to some extent. Many researchers have developed various composites to get around these restrictions and increase the performance of aluminum and its alloy. Metal matrix composites (MMCs) with nanoparticles have revealed greater mechanical and tribological properties compared with micron-sized reinforcements. This review summarizes the latest developments in this field.
Heat treatment of tool steels usually requires high flexibility combined with small lots of parts. Seal quench furnaces, executed with a single heating chamber, meet this demand. Figure 5 shows a typical schematic of a single-chamber furnace, executed with a pre-chamber, which is used both for loading and unloading and also for oil quenching or gas cooling. Another execution is shown in Fig. 6, where the load is fed directly into the heating chamber (left side in the drawing). In this case the load is transported through the furnace and received after oil quenching on the right-hand side.
For more information, click on the link below (subscription required). Then scroll to Figure 5.
R Schneider; R. Mesquita; W Schützenhöfer, Distortion in Tool Steels, ASM International, 2014, https://doi.org/10.31399/asm.hb.v04d.a0005958
The Midwest Microelectronics Consortium, a multi-state, regional initiative led by Ohio and dedicated to advancing the research and production of crucial microelectronics for the defense industry, was awarded regional hub designation and $24.3 million for FY 23 through the prestigious Microelectronics Commons program.
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The U.S. Department of Defense has awarded GlobalFoundries, Malta, New York, a new 10-year contract for a supply of securely manufactured, U.S.-made semiconductors for use across a wide range of critical aerospace and defense applications.
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Researchers at North Carolina State University, Raleigh, N.C., have created a robot called RoboMapper that can rapidly identify new perovskite materials with improved stability and solar cell efficiency and is capable of conducting experiments more efficiently and sustainably to develop a range of new semiconductor materials with desirable attributes.
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A team of researchers from the Ultramicroscopy Research Group at Trinity College at the University of Dublin, Ireland, completed the installation of a world-first User Adjustable Pole-piece (UAP) transmission electron microscope lens.
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Researchers from Australia and China are working to develop the world’s first safe and efficient non-toxic aqueous aluminum radical battery.
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