Premier Furnace Specialists and BeaverMatic completed a $2.5 million building expansion at one of its Farmington Hills, Mich., facilities. The expansion provides 45-foot-high ceilings with two (25-ton and 10-ton) overhead cranes to complement the existing two 10-ton overhead cranes. The total square feet under one roof is now 40,000. The expansion was needed for the continued growth of both companies and to accommodate the magnitude of the furnaces being built. The companies intend to hire additional employees in the future.

Gasbarre Thermal Processing Systems manufactured and commissioned a humpback annealing furnace for a worldwide manufacturer and distributor of stainless steel sinks. The gas-fired, continuous furnace, which was custom-designed to meet the company’s strict process requirements, measured 106 feet long with a belt width of 32 inches. It is equipped with six heating zones that can heat up to 2200°F. The sink manufacturer wanted to increase production by up to 50%. A belt speed of 51 inches per minute was chosen to achieve that goal.

Magnetic Specialties Inc. (MSI) built a new 4,800-square-foot addition to its facility in Telford, Pa. The insulated and heated steel building with a reinforced concrete floor will increase production floor space by 25-30%. MSI manufactures heavy-duty power supplies for the electric furnace industry; specialty transformers and reactors for a range of industries; and smaller specialty transformers for the electronics industry.

Specialized furnaces with integrated presses provide superior control of pressure and temperature to create better diffusion bonds when joining similar or dissimilar metals.

As heat treaters, it is critical to be able to justify the purchase of new heat-treatment equipment to management by being able to prepare a return-on-investment (ROI) analysis.

Lindberg/MPH shipped a four-chamber hot-stamping furnace to the Gestamp Research and Development facility in Auburn Hills, Mich. Gestamp is an international corporation that designs, develops and manufactures metal automotive components. The electrically heated furnace has one stack of three high-heat chambers and one low-heat chamber. The maximum temperature rating of the high-heat chambers is 1922°F (1050°C), and the low heat chamber has a maximum temperature rating of 1004°F (540°C). Each furnace chamber has load space dimensions of 36 inches wide x 30 inches deep x 8 inches high.

Tenova, a company of the Techint Group, concluded the selling process of the HTC Group, which includes IVA Schmetz (Germany), Mahler (Germany), Fours Industriels B.M.I. (France) and IVA Schmetz Industrial Furnaces (China). All four companies specialize in advanced technologies for heat-treatment processes for components. The purchasers are Qizhi GmbH and Shanghai Qizhi Information Technologies Co. Ltd., both members of Ningbo Qijing Holding Co. Ltd.

Fives received an order from Baosteel, the largest automotive steel producer in China, to supply the complete thermal portion for a continuous annealing line (CAL) with a production capacity of 630,000 tons per year. The CAL, which aims to produce both standard steel grades and advanced high-strength steels, includes a Stein Digiflex furnace and Celes induction heaters. The first coil is scheduled to be produced by the end of 2021.

For anyone involved in industrial heating, a critical need of any heat-treatment process is the ability to measure and control both process and product temperature.