Advanced Heat Treat Corp. (AHT) broke ground on a 15,000-square-foot expansion at its corporate headquarters in Waterloo, Iowa. The addition will allow AHT to segregate its trademark processes, UltraGlow ion nitriding/nitrocarburizing and UltraOx (gaseous ferritic nitriding/nitrocarburizing and oxidation treatments). The expansion will also include two new gaseous ferritic nitriding/nitrocarburizing units with sizes up to 13 feet tall and 5 feet wide.

The larger, 13- x 5-foot unit will allow AHT to process long plastic injection screws for the plastics industry; hydraulic cylinder rods for the agriculture and construction industries; and various pump, motor and shaft components for the oil and energy industries. A smaller, 4- x 5-foot unit will be designed to process products for the aerospace industry. It will be targeted to be Nadcap-approved by late 2018/early 2019. By doing so, AHT will then have two Nadcap-approved processes: ion nitriding and gaseous nitriding.

According to AHT, the expansion will allow better control of product flow, inventory control and process capacity. The project will nearly double its gaseous nitriding capacity. AHT currently has 55 ion and gaseous nitriding units at four locations.