What is Austempering?
Today’s journey through heat treatment technology looks at Austempering. As always, we’re industriously seeking the best, most cost-effective way to improve the mechanical and physical characteristics of a workpiece. More...
Low Carbon Steel Case Hardening Process
It’s tough to case harden low carbon steels. Simply put, more carbon equals more hardness, a feature that even the casual observer can appreciate. One solution to this processing puzzle...
Tips for Finding Leaks in a Vacuum Heat Furnace
Vacuum heat furnaces perform expeditiously as atmosphere controlled heat treatment chambers. Drained of process-influencing oxygen and filled instead with an inert gas, the furnace stops scaling, stops parts discolouration, and...
A Few Do’s and Don’ts of Hot Zone (Heat Treatment) Maintenance
Do’s and don’ts guides are an engineer’s best friend. They’re an objective instruction tool that helps system architects and fabricators to navigate processing minefields. In that regard, hot zone maintenance...
Heat Furnace and the Importance of Temperature Uniformity
Does a factory full of furnaces look like some industrial hell? In point of fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Science-lab accuracy and high-tolerance engineering exactitude rule every...
Effects of Flame Hardening on Steel and Iron
As stated in our earlier articles, flame hardening technology selectively heats and hardens parts of a metal workpiece. Imagine the teeth of a spur gear being subjected to the flame,...
Annealing Equipment: Significance in Metal Fabrication
Metal fabricators employ numerous tooling stations, which is as it should be because complex geometrical profiles are processed within these expert workshops. Some tools bend, others drill, then, waiting in...
Cost Friendly Benefits of Flame Hardening as a Heat Treatment for Steel Metals
The flame hardening process is a cost-effective heat treatment technique. Primarily, it’s the high-intensity oxy-gas flame that keeps project expenditure low. The flame hardens localised workpiece areas, so application economy...
How Does Non-Ferrous Metal Heat Treatment Work?
Processing variables are confounded when different alloys enter a heat treatment facility. Cooling temperatures and time periods adjust accordingly to metallurgical variances. Likewise, a worked hardened metal part is subjected...
How Does Hardening and Tempering Improve the Strength of Materials?
Material strength isn’t a straightforward property, not when we’re talking about structurally-capable alloys. Yes, a hardened workpiece is stiff, but it could also be brittle. In reality, strength is an...
Stress Relieving and Hydrogen De-embrittlement
Robust metals are often judged on hardness. It’s a term that’s closely related to the stiffness of an alloy, which is all well and good, but what about ductility? What...
Heat Treatment: A Critical Process that should not be an Afterthought in Large Engineering Projects
If heat treatment technology has ever been perceived as an afterthought, well, nothing could be further from the truth. This is an essential process regimen, a series of techniques that...
Is it Possible to Oil Quench Materials from a Vacuum Furnace?
This fully contained heat treatment procedure is usually tendered by Alpha Detroit when a workpiece requires a mechanically enhanced, metallurgically consistent finish. Therefore, to answer the initial question, it is...
Induction Hardening: Cheaper and Faster for Large Volume Repetition Hardening of Pins, Axles and Shafts Compared to Flame and Case Hardening
Induction hardening technology doesn’t use physical contact. Instead, a series of magnetic fields are projected from a large coil. Workpieces enter the coil, experience this induction effect, and respond by...
Flame Hardening: The Only Suitable Hardening Process for Some Large Unique Components for Large Scale Engineering Projects
The flame hardening process functions as an exceptional surface hardening solution. Its gas-generated flame hardens selected areas on command, then switches tact to heat treat large surface areas, no matter...
Analysis and Effects of Process Parameters in Induction Hardening
Induction hardening technology employs a refined control setup, with magnetically induced energy patterns acting as a contact-free heat treatment mechanism. A hardening profile is established by the induction station’s electrically...
Differences between Induction Hardening and Case Hardening
Workpiece hardening is a central part of any heat treatment facilities’ work output, so it’s only logical that several alternative techniques should develop in response to this need for mechanical...
Black Oxide Failure and Common Problems in Application
A black oxide finish imbues a worked ferrous component with an attractive ebony coating. The process transforms a thin layer of surface metal into iron oxide, so no deposits are...
Stress Relieving is Insurance for Engineering Projects
Large-scale engineering projects use machined metal components to support structural loads. They accomplish this task by accessing the strength of a selected alloy. Unfortunately, strength isn’t the only attribute contained...
The Heat Treatment of Hot Die Material for Tools Used in Forging Processes
Hot die materials are burdened with a formidable task, which is an elaborate way of saying high temperatures and higher pressures are at work. The forging process applies compressive force...
What is Carbonitriding?
As we discuss carbonitriding, expect to be carried through a heat treatment process that relies heavily on the control of local atmospheric variables. In particular, as the label implies, carbon...
Advantages of Flame Hardening of Gears and Wheel Sprockets
Gears and wheel sprockets are low profile components, but that understated physical form belies an innate knack for handling near unendurable loads. Geometrically detailed, these essential mechanical parts are machined...
Hot and Cold Precision Straightening: What Are The Differences?
High tolerances rule hot and cold precision straightening work. The factory floor is filled with high-tonnage presses and industrial grinding stations, the larger-than-life tools that enable expert material engineers to...
Top 3 Discolouration of Metal Parts Often Encountered with Vacuum Furnaces
When troubleshooting heat treatment imperfections in vacuum ovens, the undesirable results that stymy production engineers don't always fall into convenient pigeonholes. Fortunately, the discolouration of metal parts that have undergone...