In House Heat Treating-SEW EURODRIVE , Bruchsal, Germany

Readership of “The Monty” has always been a mix of in house heat treaters, commercial heat treaters and industry suppliers with the largest group, in house heat treaters accounting for approximately 65% of our readership. Because of this we have been very fortunate over the years to have had the opportunity to visit quite a number of in house heat treaters which we profile on a regular basis. One fascinating operation which we visited not that long ago is a company by the name of SEW Eurodrive in Bruchsal, Germany. Now if you’re in the gear business you know SEW Eurodrive. If you’re in the heat treating business you probably also know SEW because their plants around the world generally include substantial heat treating departments.

The Bruchsal facility is an enormous operation covering many acres and while the heat treat department is large by any standards, it covers a small portion of the overall plant. The heat treatment area is relatively new-the furnaces you see in these photos are approximately 10 years old were built and installed by Austrian furnace builder Aichelin. This is a fairly typical set up for a gear manufacturer-a number of multi chamber batch IQ furnaces with oil quenching designed for case hardening of gears and shafts along with washers, tempers, charge cars, shot blasting equipment and a very complete lab-in short everything required to run a state of the art heat treating department. The batch IQ furnaces were chosen for the same reason that many manufacturers select them-they are versatile and easily adapt to fluctuating volumes. Even a cursory glance at these pictures will show you that this is a meticulously maintained heat treat which is very much in line with the whole plant. While this installation is fairly typical of the heat treat department of a major gear manufacturer we will also say that this is a finer example than many. In these pictures you see the fellow in charge when we visited, Mr. Achim Stassen along with Mr. Achim Schneider who at the time was with Aichelin, he has since gone back to his roots-selling alloy fixturing.