Ipsen, Cherry Valley, Ill., recently installed both atmosphere and vacuum heat-treating systems at SKF’s state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in St. Louis. With the relocation of its existing facility to a new location, SKF continues to focus on enhancing the quality, efficiency, and overall effectiveness of its heat-treating equipment.
Among this new Ipsen equipment was a complete Atlas atmosphere heat-treating system, including two Atlas integral quench batch furnaces and ancillary equipment – washer, temper, endo generator, loader/unloader, and a feed-in/feed-out station. SKF also purchased a Titan vacuum heat-treating system to round out production capabilities.
Heat-treating is considered a core competency at SKF, and this new equipment will allow the company to bring the majority of heat treatment in-house and efficiently handle the increase in production demands and volume of parts.
The Atlas batch furnaces feature a 24x36x40-inch load size, with an 1100-pound load capacity. They also operate at temperatures of 1400 to 1800°F, and have a quench oil capacity of 1030 gallons.
The Titan vacuum furnace features an 18x24x18-inch load size, with a 1000-pound load capacity. It operates at temperatures of 1000 to 2400°F.
Overall, this Ipsen equipment will be used for carburizing, carbonitriding, brazing, and annealing, and will process a wide variety of parts that support SKF’s Lubrication business unit.
“We run a very large variety of parts and batch quantities here,” says SKF’s Bryan Stanford. “A custom solution designed to run tens of thousands of the same parts was not going to work for us. We wanted a low-cost, off-the-shelf-solution that would allow us the flexibility we required – which is what the Atlas and Titan delivered. Now, after having performed some pre-training, I would say what stands out the most is the ease of use and control of the equipment.”
