SECO/VACUUM, a SECO/WARWICK Group brand, sold a vacuum aluminum brazing (VAB) furnace to an international aircraft component supplier. The furnace is designed to meet tight temperature tolerances of +/-3°C and incorporates a high-vacuum system with diffusion pump. The VAB furnace is equipped with six temperature control zones and can accommodate loads with dimensions up to 36 inches wide x 28 inches high x 48 inches deep (900 x 700 x 1,200 mm). Delivery is scheduled for early 2022.

Experiments were undertaken to develop the best process for brazing Hast X alloy for an aerospace application.

Wall Colmonoy completed an upgrade to its casting facility in Pontardawe, Wales. The approximately $822,000 investment modernizes the company’s casting foundry, reducing its environmental footprint and improving its efficiency. The casting upgrade includes new induction melting equipment and magnetically screened furnaces. The furnaces offer increased capacity and reduced processing times.

ASM International and AGMA are committed to holding the 31^st Heat Treating Society Conference and Exposition (Heat Treat 2021) and the Motion + Power Technology Expo September 14-16 in St. Louis, Mo., and will not be canceling the events. Members want a platform to conduct business face‐to‐face, and it is our job to support that with our conferences and trade shows. The top priority remains the health and safety of all those who support the event on‐site. We have protocols in place and are working with America's Center Convention Complex, the city of St. Louis and our vendor partners to provide a safe environment for a successful in‐person event.

Schnitzer Steel Industries Inc. successfully restarted production at its Cascade Steel Rolling Mills in McMinnville, Ore. The company also entered into an agreement to purchase the assets of Columbus Recycling in the southeast region of the United States. Cascade restarted production following the completion of replacement and repairs of property and equipment at the mill’s melt shop, which had been lost or damaged by a fire on May 22, 2021. Cascade has resumed operations with a full workforce and is accepting orders for its full range of finished steel products based on the rolling schedule.

Nucor Steel has an extensive special bar quality (SBQ) steel program that dates back to the conversion of its plants in South Carolina, Tennessee and Nebraska to handle the product decades ago.

Andritz received an order from Valin ArcelorMittal Automotive Steel Co. Ltd. of China to supply a galvanizing furnace for a new coating line that will produce third-generation advanced high-strength steel. The line will produce hot-dip galvanized or zinc-aluminum-magnesium-coated flat steel for the automotive industry. Start-up is scheduled for the end of 2022. Andritz’s scope of supply includes a direct-fired furnace (DFF) with pre-oxidation functions, high-temperature radiant tube (RT) annealing and soaking sections, advanced ultra-rapid cooling and partitioning sections, and after-pot cooling (APC) and post-treatment sections.

Tenova successfully started up two 400-ton/hour walking-beam furnaces at Ternium’s new hot-strip mill in Pesqueria, Mexico. The furnaces are designed to heat steel slabs (up to 39 tons) at 2282°F (1250°C) while keeping NOx emissions lower than 60 ppm. This emissions level is well below the required limit. According to Ternium, the furnaces will produce coils to be used in the North American automotive market.

ArcelorMittal will invest approximately $1.2 billion in decarbonization technologies at its Asturias plant in Gijón, Spain. The project will reduce CO₂ emissions at the company’s Spanish operations by up to 4.8 million metric tons, which represents approximately 50% of emissions, within the next five years. At the heart of the plan is a 2.3 million-metric-ton green-hydrogen direct reduced iron (DRI) unit, complemented by a 1.1 million-metric-ton hybrid electric-arc furnace (EAF). This starts the transition of the Gijón plant away from the blast-furnace and basic-oxygen-furnace steelmaking production route to the DRI-EAF production route, which carries a significantly lower carbon footprint. The new DRI, which ArcelorMittal says will be the first of its kind in Spain, and EAF will be in production before the end of 2025. 

United States Steel Corp. executed a non-exclusive memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Equinor US Holdings Inc., an affiliate of Norway-based Equinor ASA. Under the MOU, the companies will study the potential for carbon capture and storage (CCS) and hydrogen development in the tristate region of Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Hydrogen-based steel processes and CCS are among the more promising and sustainable technologies currently being developed.