Category: Renewable Energy

Wisconsin Oven ships composite curing oven to Defense Industry

Wisconsin Oven, East Troy, WI, has announced the shipment of a gas-fired walk-in batch oven to a prominent manufacturer in the defense industry. The oven is designed for curing filament wound composite materials and is capable of processing a 78,000-pound load on a 40-foot long mandrel carried by a load car.

The work chamber measures 10 feet wide, 42 feet long, and 9 feet high, with a qualified work zone of 8 feet by 40 feet by 8 feet. The oven includes a rotation system to prevent drooping of uncured composites during the heating process, offering speed control flexibility through a variable frequency drive.

This oven operates at a maximum temperature of 500°F, with temperature uniformity of ±10°F at multiple setpoints. Equipped with a PLC-based Wisconsin Oven Premium Control System and an IoT system, it allows for real-time monitoring, predictive maintenance, and remote fault diagnosis.

Additional features include split-line construction for easier shipping, two powerful recirculation blowers, interior lighting, and safety-compliant railings and ladder access.

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Processing of nano-reinforced aluminum hybrid metal matrix composites and the effect of post-heat treatment: a review

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.

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One Minute Mentor: Plasma Nitriding Equipment

Cold-walled (double-walled water-cooled) systems were the first generation of plasma nitriding furnaces. This technology is also a vacuum-based process but employs the principle of glow discharge to provide energy for heating and nitriding at one time. Therefore, the independent control of the temperature stability and the nitriding intensity is not possible because both processes are using the same energy source—the plasma.

The hot-wall plasma nitriding furnaces, the next generation of cold-wall ion nitriding systems, are mainly used and built now. This system ensures optimal nitriding quality by fulfilling the highest demands on temperature and nitriding process control. The big advantage of this technology is the separation of the control of the heating and the plasma nitriding parameters. The heating and temperature control of hot-wall plasma nitriding furnaces is realized by several independent heating/cooling zones, which guarantees optimal temperature homogeneity

For more information, click on the link below (subscription required). Then scroll to Figure 26.

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

Circular economy thinking in heat treatment of nonferrous metals

BlueTechnology takes into account the importance of sustainability for production lines and raises awareness of ethical and ecological metal production. Within the confines of thermodynamics, mass and heat transfer, as well as economics.

Seco/Vacuum sells two Vector furnaces to Australian Defense

Seco/Vacuum, Meadville, Pa., has sold two new Vector single chamber high-pressure quench vacuum to the Australian defense industry through HTA. These will go to the Melbourne and Sydney commercial heat treatment facilities to provide expanded processing capabilities.

Better catalysts from super-fast heating

HighT-Tech, Md., has won The Spinoff Prize 2021 for developing a technique to make alloys that could improve catalysts or be used to build better batteries. The method enables the startup to fine-tune the catalytic activity of the materials and discover new and potentially more efficient catalysts.

Researchers use neutrons to study weld-induced stress relief in energy applications

The U.S. Department of Energy has a team of researchers exploring how a weld is put together atom by atom in order to unlock the key to making crack-free welds. The goal is to investigate the performance of welds used to build large thermal energy storage tanks at concentrating solar plants—facilities with vast networks of mirrors used to collect solar energy, some stretching several million square feet in size.

JSW Steel to invest $500 million in hot-end facility with contiguous large-diameter pipe mill

JSW Steel USA, Baytown, Texas, announces plans to invest up to $500 million to install the most technologically advanced and eco-friendly hot-end facility in the world, setting a new industry standard.

Seco Warwick enables constant control of temperature in multi-chamber heat-treat furnaces

Seco Warwick, Meadville, Pa., announces that its engineering team has designed an innovative technology for continuous control over the heating and cooling of the entire cycle in multi-chamber furnaces.

University at Buffalo receives $2.9 million for modeling/simulations lab

The University at Buffalo, N.Y., has received a $2.9 million National Science Foundation grant to transform the traditional role of a database as a repository for information into an automated computer laboratory that rapidly collects, interprets, and learns from massive amounts of information.