ALD Vacuum Technologies, Germany, recently developed a heat treatment cell called ALD-SyncroTherm, which provides synchronized heat treatment by small batch processing. Presented at the AeroMat 25 conference, it is described as “One Piece Flow,” and includes the following steps: parts are taken one by one from the soft machining unit, then heat treated in synchronization with the cycle time of soft machining, the passed down one by one to the hard machining unit.
The title of the presentation was “New Possibilities of Synchronized Heat Treatment by Using Small Batch Processing,” by Dr. Volker Heuer and Dr. Klaus Loesser.
If case hardening is the process of choice, then the components are low-pressure carburized at high temperature (1050°C), followed by gas quenching. The authors pointed out that the technology has been used in the automotive industry for the past three years, but testing for aerospace parts has just begun.
The main advantages of the treatment are improved homogeneity, better distortion control, reduced throughput times, and lower cost.
