Solar Atmospheres of Western PA and Neota Product Solutions, a custom metal injection molding (MIM) manufacturer located in Loveland, Colorado, have recently developed an exclusive sintering partnership. Neota provides comprehensive MIM solutions from early-stage prototyping to full scale manufacturing. Solar and Neota have developed a sintering thermal profile that not only densifies their complex geometric shapes but also controls shrinkage. This results in a solid and strong metallic part, with near 100% density, while maintaining the tight tolerances that are required in their precision components.
Collaborating with Solar Manufacturing, the vacuum furnace production arm of the Solar family, Solar Atmospheres of Western PA recently acquired a vacuum furnace which is engineered to handle the known rigors of MIM processing. The furnace has a work zone of 36” x 36” x 48” with a load capacity of 3,000 pounds. Jason Osborne, President of Neota says, “Solar has been a class-act organization and has been instrumental in the aggressive growth of our company.”
Bob Hill, President of Solar Atmospheres of Western PA stated, “We have sincerely enjoyed our relationship with the Neota team. As MIM industry experts, they know what they ultimately want in a finished part. As vacuum thermal processing specialists, we know how to achieve their high temperature processing parameters while not damaging our state-of-the-art vacuum equipment. Investing in our customer’s needs, ultimately results in lasting mutual relationships which become a successful endeavor for both parties.”
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The June 2021 Issue of “The Monty Heat Treat News Magazine” is now available at https://online.fliphtml5.com/g
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We are very pleased to be able to offer this interview with Mr. Craig Moller, Chief Engineer for furnace manufacturer Ipsen in Rockford, Illinois, USA. Craig brings with him over 40 years of experience in the heat treating industry and has the distinction of being the driving force behind the famous Ipsen “Turbo Treater” vacuum furnace.
With your vast experience in the design of heat treatment furnaces I am sure you must have some fascinating stories about furnace design to share but let’s start at the very beginning. How did you come to be Chief Engineer for Ipsen?
As the years rolled by I worked my way to senior mechanical engineer, where I checked other designers work, visited customers, and involved myself in solving field problems while still doing my own design projects. Some of my designs resulted in multiple patents for Ipsen.
As years passed by, when Ipsen merged with Abar the engineering group was split between the two locations in Bensalem, Pennsylvania, and Cherry Valley, Illinois. Eventually the owners of the company made a big decision to consolidate Abar and Ipsen in Cherry Valley (1997), where I was then made manager of the mechanical engineering department.
Abar Ipsen employees in Cherry Valley, Illinois, after a company merger.
Abar Ipsen 50th anniversary in 1998
As you can imagine, I have seen a lot of changes within Ipsen in my tenure. Most of those changes affected me in a positive way, like opening up the path for my current role as chief engineer. The engineering department was re-organized and I began working within the sales and marketing department and reporting directly to the President of the company. I continue to be involved with the design group mentoring the younger engineers while working on new furnace concepts and product development.
The bottom line of how I came to be Chief Engineer at Ipsen was dedication to the company and its customers.
The Ipsen “TurboTreater” vacuum furnace is a legend in the heat treatment industry-rumor has it that this was your creation. How did this come about and why has it been such a success story?
Yes, the Ipsen TurboTreater® is my “baby”. Prior to the merge of Abar and Ipsen, when the two companies were still competitors, Ipsen only had vacuum furnace designs with rectangular hot zones and internal gas cooling systems, and Abar only had vacuum furnace designs with round hot zones and external gas cooling systems. The Vice President of Sales at Ipsen approached the engineering group and challenged us to design a vacuum furnace with a round hot zone and an internal gas cooling system to capture the advantages of those two designs. The project was given to me to head up in 1984. The prototype TurboTreater® hit the shop floor in 1985 and soon after the initial testing was completed, the furnace was introduced to the market.
The first TurboTreater® brochure, featuring Craig on the cover (left, person pointing).
The success of the TurboTreater® results from its features. There are no actuated parts in the hot zone, the round hot zone has inherent load geometry flexibility, the compact internal cooling system delivers more cooling gas volume flow per horsepower, and the furnace has a user-friendly controls platform. The heating and cooling performance is outstanding. We currently have over 750 TurboTreater® units in the field.
Another very successful product for Ipsen has been the line of “TITAN” vacuum furnaces. My impression is that the “TITAN” line has been successful for a number of reasons, primarily that it is very cost effective, installation can be done in just a few days, lead time is excellent and it is a fairly standard product. Are my impressions correct? How many have now been sold around the world
You are correct. The TITAN® has been a very successful platform product for Ipsen.
Along with the reasons you have stated above, the controls platform is set up for multiple languages, easily selectable, and some of the mechanical design features stemmed from the TurboTreater® design (round hot zone, internal cooling system, etc.).
Ipsen has sold almost 400 TITAN® furnaces since the prototype in 2009.
I am shocked sometimes at the size of some of the furnaces Ipsen has produced over the years-as a matter I was told recently that your company has built at least one brazing furnace with a weight capacity of 50,000 pounds. Is this true or is somebody getting carried away? While we are talking about large capacity furnaces what is the largest vacuum furnace design that you have been involved with?
While I can’t specifically discuss the large brazing furnace due to non-disclosure agreements, I can state that Ipsen has many very large vacuum furnaces in its portfolio with large payload capacities. The largest vacuum chamber we have designed so far has a volume of 10,300 standard cubic feet.
With four decades of experience in the business you must have seen a vast number of changes. What trends have you seen over the course of your working career?
When I started work at Ipsen in 1978, office word processors were starting to be used. Digital 2D drafting tools were available, but only as main frame systems that would take up a whole room. Handheld calculators were just becoming available. Drawing storage was hard copy or microfilm. It took a long time to get drawings or copies of drawings from the blueprint room. Designing a furnace took a very long time relative to what we can do today. I would estimate that today’s technology has cut the design time and information gathering by a factor of at least 10. 3D CAD is a blessing.
Special Projects Engineering Team room where Craig drafted the first prototype TurboTreater® and engineers worked on R&D.
On the furnace side of things, controls have evolved over the years with advancing technology. When I started, controls were all relay logic. Furnace cooling performance has increased drastically from 43 years ago. The vacuum furnaces I first worked on had cutting edge technology with 40 horsepower cooling motors and up to 15 PSIG gas quenching pressure. Today 400 horsepower cooling motors and larger are common. Some dedicated cooling chambers (20 bar) can generate up to 1 megawatt of cooling power. Hot zone materials have also changed. Graphite insulation was just starting to be used in vacuum furnaces when I started. Today we still use mostly graphite insulation in vacuum furnaces but carbon/carbon materials have been added to the design mix.
Most recently, the IoT has taken root in furnace design with many added sensors for checking furnace health. Remote monitoring of the furnace with embedded alerts for system malfunctions is common and the end result is a predictive maintenance system which can save the end users many maintenance, downtime and performance headaches.
This question ties in with the previous one-automation. What I mean by that is that 40 years ago there was little in the way of automated heat treat departments but as automation becomes more reliable and costs come down automated heat treatment departments become more possible. Is this becoming a common request from customers?
Automation of heat treat departments and the equipment within is becoming more common. You see it more on the atmosphere furnace side of the business. Atmosphere furnaces are generally set up as a line with integrated washers, tempers, and load handling equipment. Load tracking and storage are part of the system. There is a breadth of unique automated systems in the field, each one serving a purpose. It’s exciting to see our furnaces as part of those systems.
Speaking of customer requests, what are customers asking you for these days? Higher pressure quenching? Easier maintenance? Lower price? Larger capacity? Probably it is a combination of all of these but if you had to pick one very common request these days what would it be?
I would say requests for very large furnaces (large work zones) has been common in the last five years. It’s not because the end user wants to heat treat more parts in a given load, but rather the end user has a very large part he needs to heat treat. These days, it is common that we have opportunities in which customers come to us with complex project requirements like large work zone sizes with tight temperature uniformity parameters. We like to embrace these technical challenges.
Pick one project that more than any other sticks in your memory. It could be the largest, it could be the most complicated, it could be the most difficult, it could be the one you are most proud about but which one will you think of first when you are old and grey?
Well I am already old and grey, but not too old yet. The one project that sticks in my memory would be the design of the TurboTreater® vacuum furnaces. I was still a fairly green engineer at Ipsen when I was asked to head up the project. I got to work with a professor from the University of Illinois (where I earned my engineering degree) who was contracted by Ipsen to be a consultant on the project. There was a lot to learn for myself and the other designers working on the project about round hot zone design and high horsepower efficient quenching. Four of my patents came from the design of that furnace.
What next in the evolution of vacuum furnaces? In other words where do we go from here?
1) I would like to see the industry strive for harmonization of pressure vessel design globally. When a high pressure quenching vacuum furnace is sold into a country that has a different pressure vessel code (does not accept the ASME Code) it is very difficult to design and manufacture. There are so many unfamiliar regulations and calculations we educate ourselves on. Lots of time and effort are spent with notified bodies. And the furnaces are usually one of a kind designs meaning you have to go through the steps every time there is one to build. Despite these challenges, we have become quite good at handling this complexity, mastering the ability to deliver systems in accordance with Europe, Japan and China standards to name a few.
2) One of my pet peeves on vacuum furnaces is the use of jack panels for plugging in temperature survey thermocouples. Jack panels are convenient, but a source of error for temperature readings. I would like to see jack panels not be used for temperature surveys, but rather have a system by where the survey thermocouples pass through the chamber to the outside world through vacuum fittings. That will produce very reliable data and give a true indication of what the temperature uniformity truly is in a given furnace. These designs exist at Ipsen, but they are much less convenient than jack panels.
3) More furnace sensors. As mentioned in question five, the IoT and connectivity of furnaces for more data gathering and diagnostics is happening right now. I see a further evolution of this utilizing even more sensors and applying the data from those sensors to perform advanced diagnostics.
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Our favorite European heat treatment exhibition HartereiKongress is held each year in Cologne, Germany although it was a “virtual” event in 2020. We mentioned how the live event was being cancelled again in 2021, now comes word that they will not be hosting a virtual event this year, it will only be the congress portion of the event. While the cancellation of the live even is very upsetting it comes as no surprise and in our opinion the organizers had no choice in the matter with the amount of uncertainty. The virtual event being cancelled will disappoint few, I believe most people have come to the conclusion that any sort of virtual show is pretty much a waste of time. We offer this photo of the last event in 2019, in this photo we see from the left Joern and Constantine Rohde of Rohde Furnaces along with Harold Roth and Paul Reichert of KGO.
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Earlier this year we published the press release below about how the second largest commercial heat treater in North America, Paulo was expanding their Monterrey, Mexico facility. The expansion is progressing on time and this photo shows how the facility looks currently with production slated to begin the third quarter of this year. The press releases issued by Paulo mention 4 new furnaces are part of the expansion, our assumption is that these will be “tip up” style furnaces designed for nitrocarburizing of brake components.
“January 2021 Press Release; Paulo Expands Monterrey Division to Support Automotive Industry; Paulo’s newest division in Monterrey, Mexico began full processing operations in 2018. The location was chosen to provide services to one of Mexico’s most prominent manufacturing hubs, and the need for precision heat treatment in the area is continuing to grow. The facility was opened with 50,000 square feet of processing space, and Paulo has just announced plans to double it in size to meet strong demand from the automotive industry for the heat treatment of brake components in passenger cars and trucks.
The expansion will include the addition of four new furnaces, which will create significantly higher capacity for ferritic nitrocarburizing and stress relieving. It will also create job opportunities for several positions including operators, maintenance, and general plant labor. “With this expansion, our strategic plan to eventually double the Monterrey division in size is coming to fruition,” said Will Rassieur, Paulo’s VP of Sales. “It’s great to see the automotive sector bouncing back and we are proud to be able to support it.”
This full-scale expansion comes in addition to the recent launch of Vacuum Heat Treating and Brazing capabilities, to support tool and die, automotive, and aerospace customers. Aldo Rodriguez, General Director, added, “It is very encouraging to see this strong growth in 2021 and beyond, only 2 years after we started operations in Mexico. The outlook of the business is very positive and we are ready to take on this challenge with such a brilliant and professional team.” Construction on the new expansion has begun, and the new furnaces will begin
production in the third quarter of 2021.”
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“Last year, the Dutch branch of Aalberts Surface Technologies Heat (formerly Hauck) in Eindhoven received a furnace, operating under high vacuum, with the working chamber of 1200x1200x2000 [mm], which is not only the largest furnace with an all-metal heating chamber but also the largest device of this kind to be operated in the Benelux Region of Europe (Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg). Now the Polish, Kalisz-based branch of the heat treatment systems and services provider will expand its production line getting a solution that can only be described with “the most” prefix. The new SECO/WARWICK furnaces will create a production line that will be used for successive vacuum carburizing (LPC) and gas quenching (CMe-T furnace), followed by annealing (BREW furnace) to reduce the internal stress of the treated metals. Performing so many processes is possible thanks to the combination of vacuum technology with atmosphere technology.
Performance and environmental-friendliness of the CMe-T
The three-chamber CaseMaster Evolution-T is a huge furnace with 1 ton per batch capacity and an annual output of up to 2,000 tons of parts. Such a device can successfully replace 3 conventional atmosphere furnaces. It is interesting to note that this furnace has an incredibly fast cool nitrogen chamber, achieving results similar to helium and oil cooling, creating an ultra-environmentally friendly system. Using the nitrogen taken from and discharged to the air eliminates both the use of expensive and difficult to obtain helium and harmful quenching oil. This makes it possible to reduce CO2 emissions by 300 tons annually. This is exactly the amount generated by three standard atmosphere furnaces.
“Aalberts Surface Technologies Heat had special requirements regarding the components and solutions used, and thus a T-series CaseMaster Evolution will replace the existing semi-continuous processes under protective atmosphere followed by oil quenching with complete vacuum heat treatment with low pressure carburizing and nitrogen quenching (25 bar!), delivering process precision and repeatability, and will probably be the quickest cooling furnace in the field with nitrogen quenching,” explained Maciej Korecki VP, Vacuum Business Segment at SECO/WARWICK. On the other hand, the BREW 6810 solution will make it possible to perform the annealing process immediately after vacuum carburizing. It is a versatile furnace that can operate between 300 and 750 °C. It is equipped with a system enabling treatment under nitrogen atmosphere, preventing oxidation on the heat-treated workpieces.”
CMe-T and BREW — a technological duet
The CMe-T furnace can replace the existing lines and atmosphere generators used for mass heat-treatment under protective atmosphere and oil quenching, whereas it ensures higher precision and process repeatability. The solution stands out, not only thanks to three chambers but mostly to the improvement of process quality results and cost reduction, twice the capacity and increased production flexibility with a compact design. The safety and environmental neutrality guaranteed by the CMe-T furnaces has become more and more important. These are among the key reasons for choosing a CMe-series furnace. The BREW 6810 is a versatile furnace for annealing after vacuum carburizing. Its huge advantage is the turbo cooling — forced cooling system, making it possible to significantly shorten the annealing process. The combination of these two technologies, that is vacuum carburizing and annealing under a nitrogen protective atmosphere ensures a comprehensive solution where the heat treatment method required for both processes can be performed immediately one after another.
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Based on a foundation of trust and service excellence, an international leader in Metal Injection Molding again chose Ipsen to supply furnaces capable of both debinding and sintering for their growing fleet. The partnership with Ipsen, an ongoing iterative process, has resulted in a total purchase of 18 TITAN® DS6 2 bar vacuum furnaces. Year after year, engineers on both teams have had open conversations regarding process and furnace design, working to perfect product functionality.
“When this relationship started a decade ago, I did not anticipate how much we would learn from each other,” said Ipsen Group CEO Geoffrey Somary. “After all these years we still enjoy a collaborative exchange of ideas, which supports this customer’s drive to deliver excellence across hundreds of part variations.”
While most MIM parts producers rely on costly lab-size furnaces for post-processing, this manufacturer requires a “work horse” that can handle large volume, demanding applications. Ipsen’s rugged furnaces are distinguished by an impressive work zone volume of 36 x 36 x 48 in (915 x 915 x 1,220 mm), a load capacity of 3,000 lbs (1,360 kg) and a right-sized filtration system – equipment certainly made for full-scale continuous production. Even at such a large size, Ipsen’s TITAN® furnace fits into a single shipping container, enticing buyers from around the globe with low transport costs.
Ipsen has a long history working with customers in additive manufacturing. As AM and the related MIM segment become more common and diverse, industries realize the potential cost savings, resulting in more and more AM and MIM parts being designed into their products from the start. Ipsen remains committed to supporting customers’ post-processing needs with innovative equipment and expert solutions. With numerous worldwide locations, Ipsen also offers local support for the life of the furnace in more than 40 countries. For more information on vacuum furnaces for additive manufacturing, visit www.ipsenusa.com/am.
ABOUT IPSEN. Ipsen is the global leader in heat treatment solutions with more than 10,000 operating systems in 70 countries. Through its Global Excellence Centers in Vacuum and Atmosphere Technology, Ipsen continues to deliver innovations that advance thermal processing while helping customers achieve their goals. Focused on performance and quality, Ipsen supports commercial heat treaters and customers in many industries including aerospace, automotive, energy and medical. With locations in North America, Europe and Asia, and the largest service team in the industry, Ipsen is committed to providing 360° support for customers worldwide.
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Bodycote, the world’s largest commercial heat treater, issued a trading update covering the four-month period from 1 January to 30 April 2021 and a brief summary can be found below with the full report available at Trading update – Bodycote Plc. As usual it makes for very interesting reading as it provided a clear “snapshot” about where the heat treating markets are going.
“Total Group revenue for the period was £208m (down 2% at constant currency and 4% at actual rates). As expected, our two businesses experienced contrasting trading conditions. AGI revenues, at £128m, were 5% up on last year in the period (7% at constant currency), while ADE revenues, at £80m, were 16% lower than last year (12% lower at constant currency, but 22% lower on an organic basis).
The following review of the Group’s revenues by end market quotes all movements based on growth against the same period in 2020, at constant currency:
Automotive revenues have recovered strongly across all geographies with growth of 19% in the period. Indeed, we even registered growth in January and February which in the prior year were barely impacted by the pandemic. The shape of the business for the remainder of the year is still emerging and will depend in part on the pace of resolution of the global chip shortage, which is impacting parts of our business.
General Industrial revenues were up 1%, with revenue levels continuing to improve quarter by quarter as industrial production recovers.
Aerospace & defence revenues were 19% lower (35% lower on an organic basis) as the civil aerospace business remains subdued. The news flow from the OEMs is moving in a positive direction with production rates improving for narrow-body aircraft as well as some pick up in flying hours for wide-body aircraft. This is leading to some very early signs of pick up in our business, although, with surplus inventory levels persisting in the supply chain for specific platforms, it is too early to tell if this will develop into a sustained improvement in revenue levels.
Energy now only represents 7% of Group revenues and were 21% lower, reflecting a substantial drop-off in both onshore and offshore business in reaction to the significant fall in demand driven by the pandemic. The recovery in oil prices in recent months has yet to materialise in greater demand for our oil and gas businesses.
Given the highly volatile trading patterns through 2020, it is informative to look at constant currency revenue development against the equivalent period in 2019, which provides a more stable comparison.
Against 2019, automotive revenues in the period were down 6%, with general industrial revenues down 8%. Aerospace & defence revenues unsurprisingly fared worse and were down 35% on an organic basis. Overall, total Group revenues were down 13% (19% on an organic basis).
Emerging market revenues (now representing 12% of Group revenues) are up 30% on 2019 levels, driven by strong growth in China, and, while Specialist Technologies’ revenue development overall reflects the weighting of this business towards ADE, revenues from our AGI focused Specialist Technologies were 18% higher than 2019 levels, clearly demonstrating the superior growth trajectory of these technologies.”
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In what is becoming a sign of the times and as mentioned in “The Monty Heat Treat News” Cost of Heat Treating Going Up! | The Monty Kanthal has just announced a price increase. Kanthal is a global supplier of electric heat treating elements and according to this press release effective June 7, 2021 the company will be raising prices between 4% and 10%.
“Heating technology provider Kanthal announces that it has notified customers globally of a price increase, effective June 7, 2021. The increase is a result of higher costs related to raw material, logistics and personnel and will vary by products and regions in the range of 4% to 10%.
“Rising prices on raw material and a recovery of the global economy are driving the inflationary pressures in our industry,” said Anders Björklund, President, Kanthal. “We are working continuously to optimize our cost structure and make our operations more efficient, but it’s also necessary for us to adjust prices to ensure that we can maintain and improve product innovation and service expertise that are delivering value to our customers.” Kanthal® is a world-leading brand for products and services in the fields of sustainable industrial heating technology and resistance materials. The company is part of the Sandvik Group and has a strong tradition in innovation and extensive investments in R&D.
The company revolutionized the heating industry in 1931 by introducing the iron-chromium-aluminum (FeCrAl) alloy. Since then, Kanthal has launched game-changing materials and products, such as the high-power molybdenum disilicide (MoSi2) Kanthal® Super heating elements and the corrosion-resistant materials Kanthal® APM and APMT. In 2019, Kanthal launched their additive manufacturing services with Kanthal® AM100, the world’s first alloy for heating application that is specially developed for 3D-printing.
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In this weeks installment of “The Heat Treat Podcast” Carlos Torres has a discussion with Mr. Doug Puerta, CEO of Stack Metallurgical Services in Portland, Oregon about HOT Isostatic Pressing. Doug is like many of us in the industry in that he was born with heat treating in his blood, his father Ralph Puerta owns and runs Vacu-Braze in Pennsylvania. From our file photos comes this picture of Doug when the company inaugurated their very first “HIP” system in early 2020. From left to right we have Mr. Nels Plough, President, Ms. Kimberley Chaussee, General Manager, Doug Puerta and Gord Montgomery.
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