Aero Space Power, a European MRO facility, ordered a custom-made vacuum furnace from SECO/WARWICK. The furnace, which has a work area measuring 1,300 x 1,000 x 1,500 mm (51 x 39 x 59 inches), will be used for repair solutions for both complex aircraft engines and gas turbines for the energy industry at a facility in Hungary. It is designed to process work in the presence of two gases: argon (used for partial pressure) and nitrogen (used mainly in the cooling process). The furnace will be equipped with a dew-point sensor for each of the gases. It also includes a partial-pressure control system based on three gases (hydrogen, argon and nitrogen) to help prevent evaporation and sublimation of alloying elements from the load surface during the vacuum heat-treatment process.

The Industrial Heating Equipment Association (IHEA) has been developing a variety of initiatives over the past six months relating to sustainability and decarbonization in the industrial heating equipment industry. The first initiative was to develop a “Sustainability” area on the IHEA website that features the foundation of information the industry needs.

MetalX, an independent metals recycling business based in Indiana, and Manna Capital Partners announced plans to invest over $200 million in a new greenfield aluminum-rolling slab facility to be built in northeast Indiana, northwest Ohio or southern Michigan. The facility will be designed to produce 220 million pounds per year of ultra-low-carbon aluminum-rolling slab with a higher percentage of recycled content than is currently available. The product mix will be focused primarily on alloys for the automotive, beverage and packaging industries. The facility is expected to become fully operational in the first half of 2026 and will employ approximately 100 people.

Borusan Mannesmann acquired 100% of Berg Pipe, a leading manufacturer of large-diameter line pipe in the United States, for $162 million. Berg Pipe manufactures longitudinal seam-welded large-diameter pipes at its manufacturing facility in Panama City, Fla., and spiral seam-welded large-diameter pipes at its manufacturing facility in Mobile, Ala. The company has a total manufacturing capacity of 550,000 tons per year. The acquisition strengthens Istanbul, Turkey-based Borusan Mannesmann’s position in the North American large-diameter pipe market.

Nucor placed orders with Sheffield Forgemasters for ultra-large steel rolls for its new plate rolling mill. Sheffield Forgemasters will deliver three rolls weighing 147 metric tons each to Nucor’s Brandenburg Mill near Louisville, Ky., an advanced steel plate mill with the ability to produce 1.2 million tons annually.

Liberty Steel, part of the GFG Alliance, announced the phase out of coal-based steelmaking at its Whyalla plant in Australia with the signing of a supply contract for a 160-metric-ton low-carbon electric-arc furnace (EAF) from Danieli. The new furnace will lift steelmaking capacity at Whyalla from 1 million metric tons per year to over 1.5 million metric tons per year. The EAF will initially be fed by domestic steel scrap and other iron-bearing materials to deliver an expected 90% reduction in direct CO₂ emissions compared with traditional blast-furnace production.

Jiuli, headquartered in China, awarded SMS group the final acceptance certificate for putting a fully automated forging line into operation. The hydraulic radial forging machine has a press force of 18 MN for each of the four press cylinders, which allows sophisticated materials for the aerospace industry to be forged. In addition, the plant includes two fully synchronized 8-ton forging manipulators and equipment for loading and unloading as well as for cutting, marking and cooling of forged bars. To achieve high process-efficiency levels while at the same time observing the technological parameters required for forging high-temperature materials, the handling manipulators used for automated unloading of heated ingots from the furnace are integrated into the line control system.

The SECO/WARWICK Group will deliver two universal batch CAB furnaces and a CAB continuous line to Australia’s PWR Advanced Cooling Technology. The furnaces will be used for brazing aluminum heat exchangers. The three solutions on order will go to two continents, Australia and North America, both owned and operated by PWR Advanced Cooling Technology, which specializes in the production of heat exchangers. The current contract is the third purchase of technologies from SECO/WARWICK designed to meet the production challenges related to the brazing process.

Cummins is investing more than $1 billion across its U.S. engine manufacturing network in Indiana, North Carolina and New York. The investment will provide upgrades to those facilities to support the industry’s first fuel-agnostic engine platforms that will run on low-carbon fuels, including natural gas, diesel and eventually hydrogen. Over half of all medium- and heavy-duty trucks on the road in the U.S. today use Cummins engines. This investment is intended to retain the thousands of current engineering and manufacturing jobs and support the creation of hundreds of new jobs across the company’s New York, North Carolina and Indiana footprint.

ABB is accelerating its growth strategy in the United States by investing approximately $170 million and creating highly skilled jobs in manufacturing, innovation and distribution operations. The highlight is a $100 million investment in New Berlin, Wis. The location will serve as the U.S. headquarters, manufacturing facility and distribution center for ABB’s Drives and Motion Services businesses. The business manufactures a range of AC variable frequency drives and controls that reduce energy consumption industrial applications. The new facility, which includes 220,000 square feet of manufacturing space, is scheduled to open in late 2024 and will accommodate 720 ABB employees. The project is expected to create 100 new jobs over the next three years.