Carbon control during sintering improves quality of MIM parts
February 16, 2015
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Linde North America Inc., Murray Hill, N.J., and Megamet Solid Metals, Earth City, Mo., a custom metal-injection-molding company, have shown that the quality of metal-injection-molded parts could be significantly enhanced by following Linde's advanced Sinterflex atmosphere control system. The system maintains the low CO+H2 concentration atmosphere necessary to stabilize carbon potential.
Using Linde's advance control system, Megamet was able to reduce the standard deviation of the carbon content in MIM parts. The Linde system also helps to reduce rejects and prevent rework due to carbon content variation, boost productivity, and increase the number of parts that are in specification.
According to Bruce G. Dionne, General Manager of Megamet Solid Metals, "Homogeneity and consistency in the furnace atmosphere are pivotal to the success of MIM manufacturing. The highest-accuracy carbon control is achieved by regulating the carbon potential at the sintering temperature to the value that will lead to the needed final surface carbon concentration in the sinter body upon cooling."
When compared to other manufacturing processes such as CNC machining and casting, MIM is a cost-effective option. This powder metal process provides the durability and strength of metals, along with the advantages of plastic-injection molding. In MIM, the final step is sintering, which is a high-temperature hardening process. This process is performed in a controlled atmosphere, and it involves application of heat below the melting point, which causes the high-density alloyed powders to fuse. During the sintering process, decarburization is avoided by the MIM parts due to the carbon-neutral atmosphere. Decarburization prevents the carbon content from meeting the specification.
www.lindeus.com
Linde North America Inc., Murray Hill, N.J., and Megamet Solid Metals, Earth City, Mo., a custom metal-injection molding company, have shown that the quality of metal-injection-molded parts could be significantly enhanced by following Linde’s advanced Sinterflex atmosphere control system.
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Vac Aero receives orders for three replacement hot zones
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Vac Aero, Burlington, Ontario, recently received orders for three complete all-metal hot zone refurbishments for customers in Florida, Connecticut, and Indiana. The companies are in the aerospace, medical, and commercial heat treatment industry sectors. The retrofit work is for two horizontal and one vertical furnace.
The hot zones feature unitized construction for easy removal and maintenance. The lightweight design's low thermal mass enables faster quenching and longer life. The heat shield package consists of one layer of 0.020 in. thick lanthanated molybdenum (Mola) sheet backed by one layer of 0.010 in. thick molybdenum sheet, and three layers of 0.014 in. stainless steel sheet.
The heat shield package is supported by a 14 gauge stainless steel assembly that also acts as a manifold to distribute the quenching gas uniformly throughout the workload. Built for rugged usage and low maintenance, Vac Aero hot zones feature unitized construction for easy removal and maintenance.
www.vacaero.com
Vac Aero, Burlington, Ontario, recently received orders for three complete all-metal hot zone refurbishments for customers in Florida, Connecticut, and Indiana.
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Alcoa invests $13 million to expand wheel manufacturing in Hungary
February 11, 2015
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Alcoa, Pittsburgh, has invested $13 million to expand its wheels manufacturing plant in Hungary. The larger facility doubles Alcoa's capacity to produce its Dura-Bright EVO surface-treated wheels compared to 2014 production levels. The expansion will enable Alcoa to meet growing European demand for its lightweight, durable, low-maintenance aluminum truck wheels.
Alcoa's Dura-Bright EVO surface-treated wheel is 10 times more resistant to corrosion primarily caused by road salts and weather elements than its predecessor, the Dura-Bright wheel with XBR technology. Unlike competitive surface coatings that can crack, peel, corrode and dull quickly, the Dura-Bright surface-treated wheel allows brilliant shine to last even after years of use, without the need for polishing.
Dura-Bright is not a coating, but rather a surface treatment that penetrates the aluminum and becomes an integral part of the wheel. Regular cleaning with commonly used truck cleaning products or with just soap and water will keep the wheels shiny, even after hundreds of washes and thousands of kilometers, reducing maintenance costs.
"This expansion positions Alcoa to capture increasing demand for our innovative aluminum truck wheels in Europe, including our easiest-to-clean wheels that look new longer, reduce maintenance costs, and increase payload and fuel efficiency," said Tim Myers, President, Alcoa Wheel and Transportation Products. "Our investments in forged aluminum truck wheels support Alcoa's broader strategy to build out our value-add businesses and gain profitable share in growing downstream markets. Sales of aluminum truck wheels are expected to increase from 30 percent of global sales in 2010 to 50 percent in 2018."
Construction of the expansion was completed on schedule and will create 35 new permanent jobs in Hungary once the facility reaches full capacity. Demonstrating its support for the project, the Hungarian Government agreed to contribute $4.4 million through its Regional Operative Program, a government-led economic development initiative.
Under the pilot program with the regional Székesfehérvár city bus operator, a number of buses will be outfitted with Alcoa's wheels. Bus operators in other municipalities have realized up to five percent fuel savings after converting from steel wheels to Alcoa's forged aluminum wheels.
In addition, Alcoa's wheels are made from one piece of forged aluminum, making them lighter and five times stronger than steel wheels, increasing payload and fuel efficiency.
www.alcoa.com
Alcoa, Pittsburgh, has invested $13 million to double production at its wheels manufacturing plant in Hungary.
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NIST is recalibrating and restoring its million-pound deadweight machine
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The National Institute of Standards and Technology, Washington, reports that, for the first time in half a century, its one million pounds-force deadweight machine – the largest in the world – is being disassembled for cleaning, restoration, and recalibration. The first stage of the process, dismantling the top half of the three-story stack of weights, is now complete and the individual pieces are being cleaned in preparation for recalibration.
Customers who rely on this unique machine include U.S. aerospace manufacturers, U.S. military laboratories, and several top-end commercial force-calibration labs, which have performed hundreds or thousands of calibrations, all directly traceable to NIST.
Built in 1965, the deadweight system consists of a stack of 20 stainless steel discs a little less than ten feet in diameter when assembled. Their average mass is just over 50,000 pounds each.
In addition to cleaning and recalibration, some of the surfaces deep within the weight stack are being restored by minor machining to permit more free operation at those interfaces. Theorists are also modeling the stack to give researchers insight into the deflections where the stresses are highest.
Dismantling the weight stack took several weeks, because each piece had to be unbolted and carefully lifted with a series of cranes. Watch the video reel (at right) for highlights of the disassembly process.
www.nist.gov
The National Institute of Standards and Technology, Washington, reports that, for the first time in half a century, its one million pounds-force deadweight machine – the largest in the world – is being disassembled for cleaning, restoration, and recalibration.
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Solar Atmospheres of California receives Safran/Snecma approval
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Solar Atmospheres of Fontana, Calif., announces that it has attained approved-supplier status for Safran/Snecma. Solar received approval for stress relieving, solution heat treating, normalizing, homogenization annealing, aging, stabilizing, and sub-zero processing. It has also been approved for austenitizing quenching for steel, nickel-base alloys, and cobalt-base alloys. Only a limited number of companies in the United States has received Safran/Snecma approved-supplier status.
"I'm very pleased to add Safran/Snecma approval to our growing list of quality approvals," says Derek Dennis, president of Solar Atmospheres of California. "Along with expanding our current capacity, our dedicated quality department continues to work diligently on obtaining new approvals to support new programs coming online in 2015. This approval was a long time in the making; Solar's internal quality system was capable of meeting all the detailed requirements of this world class aerospace supplier."
www.solaratm.com
Solar Atmospheres of Fontana, Calif., announces that it has attained approved-supplier status for Safran/Snecma.
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Evolution D6 two-chamber furnace enables 30% cost reduction
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Seco Warwick Corp., Meadville, Pa., announces that ZAP Mechanika, a Polish heat treating company, reduced its heat treatment costs by 30% with the installation of a CaseMaster Evolution D6 two-chamber furnace for vacuum carburizing and oil quenching. Both chambers are able to operate under vacuum or a partial pressure of inert gas. They are separated from each other with vacuum-tight and pressure-tight internal doors.
The system uses vacuum carburizing, which has the benefit of reducing process time while achieving excellent uniformity when carburizing complex shapes and high-density charges. The furnace also enables elimination of oxidation on the austenite grain boundaries, high accuracy, and repeatability of carburized layer shaping. It minimizes consumption of process gases (hydrocarbons) and energy, and is environmentally neutral. It allows operation at temperatures up to 1200°C (2200°F).
The charge is transferred between chambers with an internal transport mechanism. Integrated into the transport mechanism is a load elevator to quench and remove the load from the quench oil. The heating chamber is used for thermal and thermochemical processes, and is equipped with thermal insulation and a heating system.
Hands-on operation is limited to loading and unloading, selecting a recipe, and starting the process. The furnace operates in either a continuous or a task mode. If necessary, the equipment can be switched on and switched off immediately, and no time is needed for process atmosphere change or conditioning.
www.secowarwick.com
Seco Warwick Corp., Meadville, Pa., announces that ZAP Mechanika, a Polish heat treating company, reduced its heat treatment costs by 30% with the installation of a CaseMaster Evolution D6 two-chamber furnace for vacuum carburizing and oil quenching.
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Better understanding of steel fracturing
February 10, 2015
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Better understanding of steel fracturing
Researchers from the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M), Spain, visualized step-by-step and on a microscopic level how certain steels fracture when extreme loads are applied to them. This could help to improve these materials, used in the automobile industry.
Scientists from the UC3M Powder Technology Group (initialled GTP in Spanish) have carried out this research using a scanning electron microscope to obtain high-resolution images (around 10 nanometers; a nanometer is one millionth of a millimeter). The application of new techniques to characterize materials has made it possible to better understand the behavior of sintered steels (those produced from powders) on fracturing. In this way, they have been able to discover where the first cracks "‘nucleate' and where they particularly extend to," explain researchers.
The materials that are the subject of the research are commercial sintered steels obtained through powder metallurgy or powder technology and are widely used in the automobile industry. Mechanical and on-site characterization tests performed in the scanning electron microscope have been essential in "understanding the mechanisms of fracture," which, until this research, "we have never been able to determine, but instead only intuit," explains one of the authors, Elena Bernardo.
In this study several steels currently on the market were evaluated. Specifically, an Fe-C steel, a steel pre-alloyed with molybdenum (Astaloy Mo grade, Höganäs AB) and the well-known Distaloy AE (Höganäs AB), which is iron alloyed by diffusion with copper, nickel and molybdenum, were analyzed.
Results aid in understanding the connection between microstructure and properties which, in these materials, entails a technological challenge, as not only the phases but also the residual porosity that composes their microstructure come into play. José Manuel Torralba, full professor in the UC3M department of Materials Science and Engineering, stresses the fundamental role of porosity in these steels: "The research has revealed, among other things, that the most angular and irregular pores are the first points of ‘nucleation,' that is, those that initiate the breaking."
This study makes changes in the microstructure of the material visible while it is being tested, says Torralba. Moreover, the methodology used "is applicable to any type of alloy" and not only to test its behavior under pressure, but "also its behavior at high temperatures." Some of the research was carried out at the UC3M facilities and was completed at IMDEA Materials, a research institute financed by the regional government of Madrid and the European Union.
Researchers from the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M), Spain, visualized step-by-step and on a microscopic level how certain steels fracture when extreme loads are applied to them.
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Release agent designed for lightweight composite materials
February 6, 2015
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Chem-Trend, Howell Mich., is helping the aerospace industry remove mass, lower fuel consumption, and respect the environment with a release agent targeted for use with composite materials. Zyvax TakeOff is a newly developed water-based, semi-permanent release agent specifically formulated for aerospace manufacturers. It is especially effective for vacuum bagged and autoclave molding of epoxy carbon fiber prepreg. This water-based release agent does not require a sealer in most cases when used on high-quality mold surfaces in aerospace and other epoxy prepreg applications.
Zyvax mold release systems from Chem-Trend are developed specifically to address the molding needs of premium aerospace composites materials. A distinct advantage of TakeOff is its ability to be applied to molds at varying temperatures, thus reducing the required downtime to allow the mold to cool, as is sometimes needed when using solvent-based release agents. TakeOff needs only a minimal number of coats to become effective, with short dry times between applications. It also provides multiple release capability, potentially contributing to improved productivity in the manufacturing process.
Zyvax TakeOff is ideal for aircraft application because it is specifically formulated to work on extremely large epoxy molded parts and uses an environmentally conscious water-based carrier. Additionally, there is very low transfer of the release agent to the molded part. That can eliminate or significantly reduce any cleaning process that might be required prior to a post-molding procedure, such as painting and gluing. This saves material, time and money for manufacturers.
For those parts that do require cleaning, only a mild detergent and water are needed to easily remove any transferred release material. TakeOff is virtually solvent-free, exceeds the most demanding environmental requirements and provides employees a more pleasant plant environment.
"Aerospace manufacturers are not alone in their use of lightweighting solutions to increase fuel economy and decrease emissions," said Barton. "Manufacturers in the marine, rail and automotive sectors are also increasing their use of composite materials to gain the same economic advantages. With as much as 50% of today's aircraft comprised of composite material, release agents play a major role in production.
Chem-Trend is helping the aerospace industry remove mass, lower fuel consumption, and respect the environment with a release agent targeted for use with composite materials.
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AFC-Holcroft receives order for rebuild/retrofit of pusher furnace line
February 3, 2015
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AFC-Holcroft, Wixom, Mich., reports that a leading global automotive supplier has placed an order for a rebuild/retrofit of an existing pusher furnace line, along with contract additions for companion ancillary equipment, as part of a multi-phase project. The first phase rebuild/retrofit portion involves restoration of an existing 3-row pusher furnace line including pusher furnace with quench, postwasher, temper furnace, transfers/conveyors, electrical control panels, and flowmeter panels.
As part of the order, the existing equipment will receive a number of modifications and upgrades to meet current industrial, safety, and supplier standards.
The new companion ancillary equipment will consist of the following: 3-row magazine loader, prewasher, preheat furnace, oil storage tank, closed-loop cooling system, 13,500 cfh E-Z series endothermic gas generator, transfers/conveyors, and powered exhaust system.
A new holding chamber with press quench will integrate into the rebuilt/retrofitted equipment that will allow for either direct part quenching (into pusher furnace quench tank) or press quenching (into the press quench). The holding chamber will be unloaded by a robot that will load/unload the press quench.
The equipment for rebuild/retrofit is already in storage at AFC-Holcroft's build partner, MATTSA, in San Luis Potosi, Mexico. MATTSA will rebuild/retrofit the existing pusher furnace line and provide the new companion ancillary equipment. Once completed, each piece will be cold-tested and shipped to the supplier's plant for installation, start-up, commissioning and formal operator training by MATTSA and AFC-Holcroft. Completion of the first phase is expected in 2015.
www.afc-holcroft.com
AFC-Holcroft, Wixom, Mich., reports that a leading global automotive supplier has placed an order for a rebuild/retrofit of an existing pusher furnace line, along with contract additions for companion ancillary equipment, as part of a multi-phase project.
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Novelis commissions $48 million aluminum recycling center in Oswego
February 1, 2015
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Novelis Inc., Atlanta, announces completion of a $48 million investment in its automotive scrap aluminum recycling facility in Oswego, N.Y. The recycling investment includes a new 81,000 sq.-ft. building capable of processing, sorting, and storing automotive scrap aluminum. The facility features best-in-class scrap recovery and conversion technology. It will enable Novelis to process as much as 10,000 metric tons of recycled scrap per month.
It expands upon the company's recent growth in Oswego to meet the increased demand for aluminum automotive sheet in North America. Over the past five years, Novelis has invested more than $400 million in Oswego and hired more than 430 new employees, with around 250 additional jobs planned by the year 2020.
"As the leader in automotive closed-loop recycling, one of our top priorities is to create a sustainable supply line between Novelis and automakers, which will preserve aluminum's value, reduce greenhouse gases, and increase economic efficiencies for our customers," said Marco Palmieri, President of Novelis North America. "This investment will help us meet new demands of automakers as they turn towards lightweight aluminum to create more fuel-efficient vehicles."
Since 2011, Novelis has invested more than $550 million to raise its global automotive sheet capacity to 900,000 metric tons by the end of this year. Novelis predicts that sales of automotive aluminum, which currently represents about 9% of its total shipments, may climb to as much as 25% by 2020. To support the growing demand for automotive aluminum, Novelis will allocate approximately 80% of the Oswego facility's capacity to the automotive market.
www.novelis.com
Novelis Inc., Atlanta, announces completion of a $48 million investment in its automotive scrap aluminum recycling facility in Oswego, N.Y.
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