It is just short of 110 years since the tragic sinking of the unsinkable ship, the RMS Titanic. During construction, some 2,000 hull plates were used along with approximately 3 million rivets to join the hull plates together.

Conduct the temperature uniformity survey (TUS) on the furnaces each week. Be sure to remember to conduct the TUS anytime that a repair has been completed on the furnace. 

Temperature uniformity within a furnace can be defined as: “a uniform temperature set to operate within a specific tolerance band to create conditions under which a final uniform resulting metallurgy will be accomplished in the treated component.”

For through-hardened steels, in order to achieve a good and true hardness result, it is necessary to test the substrate material by grinding beneath the oxide and decarburized layer.

Some of my blogs contain more metallurgy than others. Some contain well-known history. This blog is about the history and legend of the “copper mounds” of North America.

Heat treaters are continuously looking for new ways and new alloys that will improve performance at lower cost. This leads to the stainless steel realm of alloys, including the historical favorite 310 stainless, as well as relative newcomer 253MA^®. 

Here is the third and final installment of David Pye's blog series on safety in the heat-treat workplace.

Hardness testing determines the success of the heat-treatment procedure and the material’s response to that heat treatment.

ALD Vacuum Technologies North America Inc. supplies vacuum heat-treatment and vacuum metallurgy equipment – including EB PVD and CVD coating equipment, furnaces, parts and services – to the automotive, aerospace and critical-materials industries.

Safety in the workplace regarding heat treatment connects each and every person who works in either a captive or a commercial shop. We all have an obligation to one another to minimize the risk of accidents and injuries (no matter how minimal or extensive that injury might be).