Technical Sessions

Tuesday October 05, 2010

8:00 am - 9:00 am

Session:  AMS 2750D Review, Sensors, Instrumentation, SAT and TUS testing

Presenter:  Conrad-Kacsik Instrument Systems, Inc.

A review of AMS 2750D using practical examples in everyday applications. Discussion as it pertains to NADCAP accreditations.

Session:  Control of Carbon Potential With Oxygen Probes and Lambda Probes

Presenter:  Mesa Electronic GmbH

Gas carburizing still plays an important role in heat treatment. Temperature and carbon potential (C-Potential) of the atmosphere are the essential parameters for the process control. Till this day there is no direct measurement method for C-Potential which could be used for online process control.  The measurement of the oxygen partial pressure in the furnace atmosphere is the most used indirect method for the control of the C-Potential. There are different types of oxygen probes. In this article the essential differences in construction will be discussed as well as their advantages and disadvantages. 

Session:  Low Distortion Heat Treatment of Transmission Components

Presenter:  ALD Vacuum Technologies, Inc

In many applications the high demands regarding fatigue properties of transmission components can be reached only by the application of a customized case hardening. This case hardening process results in a wear resistant surface-layer in combination with a tough core.  However as a side-effect the components get distorted during heat treatment. This distortion has a significant cost-impact, because distorted components need to be hard-machined after heat treatment. Therefore the proper control of distortion is an important measure to minimize production costs.  By applying the technology of Low Pressure Carburizing (LPC) and High Pressure Gas Quenching (HPGQ) heat treat distortion can be significantly reduced.  HPGQ provides a very uniform heat transfer coefficient. The predictability of movement during quenching is more certain and uniform throughout the load. Further improvements can be achieved by “Dynamic Quenching” processes where the quenching severity is varied during the quench sequence by step control of the gas velocity. Proper fixturing is another factor for distortion control. Modern CFC materials (carbon reinforced carbon) are well suited as fixture-material for gas quenching. When compared to traditional alloy CFC demonstrates no deflection or distortion after many subsequent years of use.

Session:  Microwave Heated Fluid Bed Heat Treating

Heat Treating of cast aluminum parts, metal castings, and steel parts is a fundamental processing step in each of these three energy intensive industries. Heat treating is accomplished in these industries by the use of high temperature furnace equipment typically operating at temperatures in the range of 500ºC to 1100ºC depending upon the metal involved and the particular requirements of the properties of the metal for the various applications. The design of the equipment to meet these temperatures requires heavy quantities of structural steel, insulation material, metal alloys and structural ceramics. When this equipment is in processing use, the amount of energy required to heart treat the parts being processed is typically small relative to the amount of energy transferred into the processing equipment and supporting structure. In cases where the heat treating recipe requires significant excursion in temperature for each heat treating cycle, the energy lost to the equipment and supporting structure can dwarf the energy requirements of the metal being heat treated.

Microwave technology offers the possibility of directing energy to the parts being processed with significantly less energy being expended elevating the temperature of physical support facilities which are not required for, nor directly influence, the heat treatment process.  Fluid Bed Furnaces are recognized for high quality heat treating of metal parts and assemblies. These furnaces have found applications as diverse as human body parts as well as aluminum engine blocks and heads. Development personnel of Procedyne Corp., New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA and Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee have been assessing the energy consumption reduction that could be achieved, by combining fluid bed technology with microwave technology for the energy source. 2 Energy balance and heat transfer calculations suggest the reduction in the range of 28 to 54% depending upon the heat treating recipe involved. The effort to demonstrate this combination of technologies is underway.

Session:  Solution Nitriding - A Cost Effective Case Hardening Process

Presenter:  Ipsen, Inc.

Solution Nitriding or the Ipsen SolNit® is a newly developed thermo-chemical heat treating process for case-hardening stainless steel.  If treated with normal nitriding or carburizing processes, stainless steels lose most of their corrosion resistance due to the formation of chromium nitrides or carbides. The Ipsen patented case hardening process is very different from the conventional nitriding process. It impart at nitrogen rich case measuring up to 0.100” (2.5mm) on parts made from either austenitic or martensitic steel while at the same time preserves or improves the parts corrosion resistance. Attendees will learn about the background theory, microstructureapplication, and results of solution nitriding in Ipsen’s high pressure gas quench furnaces.

Session:  Save Your Money by Reducing Peak Demand

Presenter:  dibalog USA Inc.

Reducing your Electrical Costs/Energy Optimization Systems. Electrical bills around the world are composed of two parts, total energy usage and peak demand charges which takes into account the highest 15 minutes of electrical usage for any given month (this time period can vary depending upon the electrical provider). By reducing peak demands, electrical bills are reduced. This is done by monitoring total electrical usage plant wise while at the same time electrical usage is monitored on each individual piece of electrically heated equipment. Physically this is done by a module installed in each control panel which feeds the information back to a central processor on a continuous basis. With this information the system can automatically and continuously make small adjustments to heating rates to insure that peaks are reduced and consequently the bill is lowered.  Systems such as this have been in place in Europe for over 40 years but it wasn't until recent increases in electrical rates in North America that systems such as this became economically viable in North America. The system works in the background making adjustments as needed on a second by second basis and will only adjust power during ramp ups not during a soak or quench cycle.

Tuesday October 05, 2010

9:30 am - 10:30 am

Session:  Advancements in Pulse Firing Technology

Presenter:  Eclipse Combustion, Inc.

Pulse firing of burners as a method of controlling heat to the load in a furnace is widely promoted. The technology can provide significant advantages when applied correctly. This presentation discusses fundamentals of pulse firing and provides basic knowledge so that a novice may avoid problems in applying the method. Specific factors of pulse firing that influence the transfer of heat to a load in a furnace are identified. Several different pulse control sequences are described and related to attributes such as temperature uniformity and to the requirements of safety standards. Certain aspects are given for consideration when selecting the components used in the control of pulse firing. The pulse firing method is compared to more traditional control methods with discussion about some of its advantages and disadvantages.

Session:  Gas Quenching: Is Hydrogen a Path Forward?

Presenter:  Solar Manufacturing

Progress in the area of gas quenching in vacuum furnaces has been slow paced in recent years. The discussions involving the advantages of pressure over velocity and vice versa have been discussed at length by vacuum furnace manufacturers. Progress has been primarily defined in terms of increased gas quenching pressure and fan volumetric flow ratings, but the cost benefit appears to ave reached an upper boundary in terms of furnace construction at 20 bar and 400 horsepower. Furthermore, cost pressures associated with competing against liquid quenching processes have made it decidedly difficult to justify any further increases when sing the conventional gas quench media, nitrogen and helium. Any inroads will have to be made using gases other than these. Discussions necessarily revolve around the use of hydrogen since it offers the benefit of significantly decreased horsepower requirements when compared to conventional media at equivalent quenching conditions while offering markedly increased heat transfer rates for all but the largest part cross sections. Comparisons to helium further demonstrate that, from the standpoint of the cost of media and increased heat transfer performance, the use of hydrogen is still beneficial. Although safety is always the primary concern when hydrogen is mentioned, it must be remembered that many industrial processes exist which involve the safe use of much higher pressure hydrogen. Cost implications and risk management associated with the use of hydrogen will be discussed.

Session:  Low Pressure Nitriding

Presenter:  Seco/Warwick Corporation

Typical heat treatments performed in vacuum furnaces today include high pressure gas quenching (HPGQ), low pressure carburizing LPC) and high temperature low pressure carburizing with pre-nitriding. This session will explore a new technology, low pressure nitriding, particularly useful for high alloy steel treatment. A universal vacuum furnace may be used to accommodate all above applications in a single furnace, a practical solution for commercial heat treating. This vacuum nitriding process allows the complex processes to be achieved within a single furnace: quenching, tempering, and nitriding of tool steels, for example die blocks, pressure casting dies and injection molds.

Session:  New In-Situ Technique for the Measurement of Carbon Transfer in Carburizing Furnace Atmospheres

Presenter:  Marathon Monitors,  Inc.

Traditional furnace atmosphere measuring techniques have inherent error due to the fact that only one or more of the atmosphere gas components are measured to infer %carbon. These methods have limited ability to predict the actual activity of carbon at the surface of the material. This paper will explore a new technique using the carbon flow probe to measure actual carbon activity.

Session:  Novel Approaches in Induction Heat Treating

Presenter:  Inductoheat

Presentation discusses several recently developed innovations related to induction heat treating of metals, including:

1. Patented FluxManager® systems for effective tempering/stress relieving/ annealing of steel tubular goods for oil and gas industries.
2. Advanced technologies for induction hardening of critical automotive components:
2a. Contour hardening of small and medium size gears and gear-like components with minimum distortion utilizing single coil simultaneous dual frequency induction systems.
2b. Induction hardening of wide-face hypoid, spiral and bevel gears with diameters from 6"/150mm to 8.5"/220mm.
2c. Patented SHarP-C™ non-rotational induction crankshaft hardening and tempering technologies (band hardening and fillet hardening).
3. Novel scan hardening of complex shape parts. Introduction of novel inverter technology capable to independently controlling both frequency and power (STATITRON - IFP inverters) during the heating cycle.

Session:  Simple, Cost Effective Documentation of Furnace Performance

Presenter:  Orton Ceramic Foundation

Technology today allows us to monitor furnace temperatures in multiple locations. Unfortunately, the cost to do this on a regular frequency usually outweighs the benefits.   AMS2750 requires us to verify the temperature uniformity inside furnaces are within established standards. When you perform a TUS and everything is within standards, great! If you ever fail a TUS, how do you know when your furnace has changed? Was it two days after your good survey, or two days before your bad survey?  The Orton Ceramic Foundation with over 100 years of experience developing and producing thermal recording devices recently introduced a new product “TempTAB” for the metal treating industry. TempTABs provide verification of furnace performance and reproducibility without interrupting production. They are simple to use and when used in conjunction with TempTAB Traker Software, provide documentation of your furnace's performance. They can easily be incorporated into SPC/ continuous improvement programs.  The purpose of the presentation is to explain the benefits of the TempTab Measuring System and how it fits into your quality assurance program.

Wednesday October 06, 2010

8:00am - 9:00am

Session:  New Measurement and Control Techniques for Predictable Results in Ferritic Nitrocarburizing

Presenter:  Process-Electronic Gmbh

Control of compound layer in the FNC process has traditionally been accomplished by fixed flow of process gasses. Inherent difficulty of measuring he process by extractive sampling, or the lack of in-situ sensor technology has eliminated the possibility of closed loop control, as well as documentation of the process that would aid in compliance to specifications such as CQI-9, and SAE AMS 2759/12.  This presentation will explore a modern approach that will improve compound layer control as well as provide accurate process documentation.

Session:  Variable Frequency Induction Heat Treating

Presenter:  Radyne Corporation

Speaker will discuss new variable frequency induction heating techniques that allow heat treaters to create varying hardness and case depths; provide optimum case profiles in shoulder areas and diameter steps, edges, corners and holes; avoid cracking risk in notch effect areas.  Examples of variable frequency induction hardening will be shown along with the variable frequency recipies that were used.

Session:  Advances in Flow Measurement Techniques and Efficient Flow Control for Endothermic Generators

Presenter:  Waukee Engineering Company, Inc.

Companies have increasing pressure for specification compliance to NFPA, CQI9, and AMS2750D, and the need for continuous improvement with cost reductions. This paper will explore the latest technologies in flow measurement and control to satisfy specification compliance, and provide cost reductions in the operation of endothermic generators.

Session:  Process and Energy Efficiency with Burner Monitoring System

Presenter:  Super Systems, Inc.

According to the Department of Energy, most high temperature direct-fired furnaces, radiant tubes and boilers operate with about 10 to 20% excess combustion air at high fire to prevent the formation of dangerous CO and “soot” deposits. It is estimated that changing this practice and delivering precise control of air to fuel ratio will yield 5 to 25% savings in heat generation. This saving delivers operational and energy efficiencies. This presentation will provide you with how this can be performed and case studies on the benefits achieved.

Session:  Redundancy in Furnace Operation

Presenter:  Eurotherm Inc.

With the improvements in materials and machining technology and the elimination of stocked components, the value of batches treated in both captive and commercial heat treat furnaces are becoming more and more valuable.  Heat Treaters need to ensure their Furnace operating systems do not let them down while treating critical batches.  Recent improvements in control technology now allow cost effective redundant control.   The redundancy can be at the power supply level, thermocouples, other sensors level (carbon/vacuum) and even Processor level for PLC’s or PAC’s and data capture level.

Session:  Vacuum Furnace Designs for Maximum Energy Efficiency

Presenter:  G-M Enterprises

Manufacturing high quality parts with heat treating requirements can be very expensive needing careful parts handling, fixturing and quality testing prior to release for production. Utility Costs – Electricity, Inert Gas and ongoing maintenance costs are the biggest expenses in running a high performance and high quality vacuum heat treating operation, besides labor and capital expense of the furnace and support equipment.  What can be done to reduce operational expenses to maximize profits when running a vacuum furnace? There are many design features in a vacuum furnace that can directly impact the profitability of a vacuum heat treat operation. The simple approach is to educe power losses, reduce gas consumption and shorten cycle times through optimization. What design features can be changed lightly to make these improvements with minimal impact to the furnace initial cost?

Reduce Energy Losses –
• Thicker or better insulation materials in the hot zone
• Use high efficiency element materials
• Correct electrical inductive loading losses via Power Factor Correction
• Use higher temperature cooling water for the vacuum vessel
• Lower diffusion pump oil temperature during furnace idle states

Reduce Inert Quench Gas usage by fine tuning gas quench pressures by 1.0 PSI increments for optimized cooling.

Wednesday October 06, 2010

9:30 am - 10:30 am

Session:  Virtual Prototyping of Induction Heat Treating

Presenter:  Fluxtrol Manufacturing, Inc.

The time between a product’s definition and production is constantly shrinking. To meet these requirements, extensive use of virtual prototyping has replaced physical models in the mechanical design process. As a result of this, the induction heat treating process developer will oftentimes not receive a quantity of parts for heat treatment until a few weeks prior to having to deliver samples. This makes it nearly impossible to produce good quality parts on time using a traditional test and trial method. The development focus shifts to “just getting a pattern” rather than developing a robust production process.  To meet the modern development requirements, the same methods that have led to significant improvements n the mechanical design process are applied to induction heat treating. Virtual prototyping tools include electromagnetic, thermal and metallurgical finite element analysis along with 3-D CAD software. Virtual prototyping allows for the study of a much larger design space in a shorter period of time at lower cost. Final process validation is preformed on real equipment. A case story of an induction heat treating process of wheel hub hardening developed with virtual prototyping is presented. Savings achieved with the virtual tools are
discussed.

Session:  Creep is Your Enemy

Presenter:  INEX, Inc.

Typical heat treat furnaces, whether atmosphere or vacuum, often use trays, fixtures, baskets, transfer mechanisms, and radiant tubes made of nickel chrome alloys. The high temperatures involved in most metallurgical processes have the undesirable effect of accelerating the rate of creep or deformation of alloy components. This presentation will explore the use of alternate materials which an minimize creep failure. Substitute non metallic materials are examined with an emphasis on both the advantages and disadvantages.  The presenter will draw on personal experiences in, on and around heat treat furnaces for over forty one years.

Session:  Improvement of Corrosion Resistance by Phase-Controlled Ferritic Nitrocarburizing

Presenter:  Nitrex Metal, Inc.

Controlled ferritic nitrocarburizing processes such as Nitreg®-C, when followed by post-oxidizing, are known to yield a very high esistance to corrosion. The control equipment and software used for Nitreg®-C processes meet the aerospace specification MS2759/12A, making it possible to consistently achieve the required metallurgical results.  Currently, this standard limits process recipes to be controlled via Kn and Kc set points for each stage of the process. That is, they do not take into account the dynamic shift of reactions occurring at different temperatures, and consequently they do not produce a niform nitrided structure. On the other hand, our new concept of phase control takes into account the dynamics of dissociation and diffusion that shift with temperature. In other words, Nitrex is now able control the process parameters via floating set points that follow phase boundaries throughout the process.  This approach opens a wide field in nitriding and nitrocarburizing process control specifically aimed at a number of factors such as a defined porosity, but also obtaining monophase white layers, high carbon epsilon phases, and low carbon white layers.  In this presentation we will show how such control is applied, and how it leads to optimum corrosion resistance by dense white layers with controlled magnetite oxide layers in the newest Nitreg®-C/ONC® technologies.

Session:  New Internal Quench Furnace Design Provides Alternative to Heat Treating Large Parts in Pit Furnace

Presenter:  BeaverMatic, Inc.

While demand for large parts (IE. Wind Turbine gears) with high quality has increased, companies have looked for ways to reduce manufacturing costs. Traditionally, companies heat-treat large parts that require oil quenching in pit furnace lines. In addition to the angers associated with processing in pit furnaces (IE. open quench tanks and hooking baskets), operators use cranes to transfer loads f hot parts through air. The resulting parts have quality problems that can include inconsistent hardness and surface oxidation.  These pressures led one company to search for alternatives to pit furnace lines. Ultimately, they purchased an I/Q furnace line for the project. The line includes an integral quench furnace, temper furnace, and powered transfer cart capable of processing 48” wide by 54” long by 96” high workloads that weigh up to 15,000 lbs. The result is higher quality parts as compared to heat-treating in a pit furnace line.  This presentation will focus on the technical merits and benefits of processing large parts in IQ furnace lines vs. pit furnace lines.

Session:  Review of Heat Treat Industry Emission Standards

Presenter:  Surface Combustion, Inc.

Emission standards affect the heat treat industry. It is important to keep current with current emission rules, whether they are state statutes SCAQMD) or national regulations (EPA). By being aware of these standards, heat treaters can be ready to meet future requirements today.  Energy efficiency technologies and control strategies which have an impact on emissions will be reviewed and discussed.  The investigation summary will be shared and air quality rules will be highlighted. Testing options and benchmarks will be noted. Options to incorporate emission reductions into new heat treat equipment as well as retrofit packages for older equipment will also be discussed.

Session:  Taming the NADCAP Processing Beast

Presenter:  Throughput Consulting, Inc.

With increased demands on manufacturing operations, quality managers/business owners are finding themselves subject to stricter guidelines from both their customers and quality accreditations like NADCAP. Businesses are now required to take proactive approaches to ensure they are meeting the variety of requirements that are imposed on them and have the proper processes, such as Nonconformance’s, Customer Complaints, Corrective Actions (CAPA), Specifications, Data Collection, etc., in place to meet the new
requirements. In today’s world, the role of a quality manager/business owner has become much more complex, learn how to leverage