Nitrex Metal completed Phase 2 of a four-phase nitrocarburizing project for Chinese industrial gear maker Nanjing High Speed & Accurate Gear Co. (NGC). The project is part of NGC’s major expansion program, which the company embarked on in 2008 when it opened two new large-scale manufacturing facilities for the expanded production of its high-speed and heavy-duty gears. Nitrex’s scope of supply includes multiple nitrocarburizing systems based on a common horizontal-loading chamber furnace platform. Phase 3 will be fully completed in 2011.

To date, eight turnkey systems have been successfully installed and commissioned at the Nanjing plant. Nitrex’s involvement is in the front-end engineering phase of the project, including system and process control design, licensing of Nitreg®-C nitrocarburizing technology, and on-site operation and testing of the systems. Nitreg®-C technology was chosen by NGC for its compliance to AGMA 923 metallurgical specification for steel gearing. In addition, NGC chose the Protherm 9800 production management software supplied by Marathon Monitors Beijing, a member of United Process Controls, to perform data acquisition, recipe management and monitoring of the Nitrex nitriding systems as well as three preheat ovens and two parts washers.