Nutec Group announced effective Feb. 1, 2023, Genaro F. Cueva will step down from the position of CEO, remaining in his position as Chairman of the Board. He will be replaced as CEO by Daniel Llaguno, currently president, Nutec Fibers Division. This transition had been announced internally back in September 2022.

A flow-meter upgrade will better support the natural gas flow heating of your processes.

Beginning Jan. 1, 2023, the assets of L&L Special Furnace Co. Inc. of Aston, Pa., will be acquired by Specialized Thermal Solutions Inc. However, the company will maintain operations under the name L&L Special Furnace, with David Cunningham serving as both owner and president.

Hirschvogel Group, a manufacturer of steel and aluminum components, commissioned a new heat-treatment plant with electric heating at its main plant in Denklingen, Germany. This fully automatic chamber furnace line is key to Hirschvogel’s decarbonization strategy because the heating is CO₂-neutral. Designed and supplied by Aichelin, the double continuous chamber furnace line ensures high output with maximum flexibility. It includes pre- and post-cleaning systems, a preheating furnace, two high-temperature furnaces, two tempering furnaces and two endothermic gas generators.

SECO/WARWICK received an order for furnace upgrades from the Philadelphia Mint, the nation’s first mint. SECO/WARWICK Group’s American subsidiary in Meadville, Pa., recently began the current round of upgrades – a comprehensive refurbishment of all five of the mint’s heat-treating furnaces, one furnace per year. SECO/WARWICK installed the heat-treating furnaces from 1994 through 2000. Their function in the minting process is to anneal, clean and dry the coin blanks to soften the metal prior to striking into coins, extending the service life of the striking dies. All five furnaces are 4,000-pound/hour rotary-retort furnaces outfitted with SECO/WARWICK’s patented Whirl-A-Way Quench system, as well as a hopper feeder, a batch burnish barrel and a batch/continuous drum drier.

Following an extensive, nearly yearlong full facility remodel, industrial furnace manufacturer AFC-Holcroft held a formal ribbon-cutting ceremony at its world headquarters in Wixom, Mich. A dedicated testing and development area specific for process control equipment was created, allowing a virtual environment where furnace process-control functions can be developed, simulated and tested prior to being deployed in the field. A main focus of the renovation, however, was to make the building more environmentally friendly, specifically with regard to heating and cooling. The walls of the entire production area were replaced with insulated wall panels, and numerous windows were added to provide more natural light. The roof system was renewed and insulated, and the overhead warehouse doors were modernized to contribute to the new high-efficiency ventilation/heating systems. These measures improve energy efficiency by around 35%.

Lindberg/MPH built and shipped a gas-fired cyclone box furnace to a manufacturer. The heat-treat furnace has a maximum temperature rating of 1250°F and a load capacity of 6,000 pounds. It is designed for air atmosphere applications and utilizes a high-velocity forced heating system. A circulation fan provides optimum heat distribution by delivering heat evenly throughout the work chamber through high static pressure airflow. The furnace is designed to accept fixtures that are 48 inches wide x 84 inches deep x 48 inches high, and a full-width roller hearth is located across the furnace chamber floor for manual loading and load support.

Taking these four preventive measures brings uniformity and reliability to heat-treat processes.

L&L Special Furnace Company Inc. has delivered an atmosphere-controlled retort burn-off furnace to a Midwest manufacturer of ceramic matrix composites (CMCs). The furnace, which has a work zone of 32 inches wide x 32 inches high x 66 inches deep, has a single zone of control with a temperature gradient of ±20°F at 1100°F using four zones of temperature control with biasing to balance any temperature gradients. The parts are heated to 1220°F (660°C) in a retort chamber that is pressurized with nitrogen. The byproducts of the outgassing part are directed by pressure and flow out of the rear of the furnace. The parts are then heated in a vacuum furnace to temperatures in excess of 2300°F (1260°C). The result is a super strong component that is lighter than titanium.

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.”