Bodycote announced the opening of a new heat-treatment facility in Elgin, Ill. The facility is now fully operational and supporting customer requirements. It continues to provide all of the processes and capabilities that were previously offered at Bodycote’s Melrose Park location. In addition, the Elgin facility offers nitriding, Corr-I-Dur, nitrocarburizing and low-pressure carburizing (LPC) to customers from the agricultural, mining, construction, automotive and other manufacturing supply chains in the upper Midwest region.

Alugen Aluminium, a Turkish aluminum extrusion company, expanded its production capabilities with a Nitrex NXK series nitriding system. The turnkey system was delivered with Nitreg potential-controlled gas nitriding and Nitreg-C potential-controlled gas nitrocarburizing technologies. Process recipes are optimized to improve the performance of aluminum extrusion dies and increase throughput. The service life of dies is also extended through periodic nitriding, which helps to control the high heat and impact pressure that dies undergo during extrusion cycles. With a work area of 23.5 x 47.25 inches (600 x 1,200 mm) and a load capacity of 1,700 pounds (800 kg), the NXK system allows Alugen to mix special dies with regular production dies for a faster turnaround of product-specific production plans.

Nitrex Metal entered into an exclusive agreement with Voestalpine AG to bring new innovations in stainless steel hardening technologies to the Czech Republic. As a result of the agreement, Voestalpine added a nitriding system configured to process workloads 31.5 inches in diameter x 78.75 inches high (800 mm x 2,000 mm) that weigh up to 3,850 pounds (1,750 kg). The system complements a previously installed Nitrex system that combined Nitreg-C gas nitrocarburizing technology with ONC post-oxidizing technology for processing firearms.

JGEF Furnace installed a series of nitrocarburizing furnaces at a commercial heat-treatment company’s recently opened 53,820-square-foot facility in Chongqing, China. The furnaces are designed to maintain temperature uniformity of ±3°C. The series of pit nitrocarburizing furnaces use software that controls the nitriding potential and maximizes the efficiency of the process. The systems are capable of maintaining the preset values of Kn, and the process requires no manual adjustments from start to finish.

Family-owned heat-treatment company GalvanoTechnik of Lombardy, Italy, expanded its portfolio to include Nitreg-controlled nitriding, Nitreg-C nitrocarburizing and ONC in-process oxidation treatments. The company invested in a compact Nitrex system configured to process 23.5-inch-diameter x 35.5-inch-high workloads that weigh up to 1,300 pounds. The system complies with the temperature-uniformity requirements of AMS 2750E and meets the specifications of ASM 2759/10, which make it possible to consistently achieve the required metallurgical and mechanical properties for controlled nitriding.

Nitrex Metal received an order for a turnkey nitrocarburizing system from Alu Menziken Extrusion AG, a Swiss manufacturer of aluminum profiles and complex extrusion-press products. The system, which incorporates Nitreg-C technology for treating aluminum extrusion dies, was installed at the company’s new state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in northwestern Romania. The pit furnace has overall chamber dimensions of 31.5 inches in diameter x 59 inches high (800 x 1500 mm) with capacity optimized to nitrocarburize a 3,300-pound (1,500-kg) load. The process technology adapts to the application requirements to deliver improved performance of extrusion dies.

Modern designing of mechanical components and tools should take under consideration their intrinsic stresses and surface condition.

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.