If you’re at all like me, you wonder which articles get the most attention on our website. Every year we publish over 40 feature articles, and at the end of the year we gather statistics to see which ones get the most page views. So, without further ado, here are the five most-viewed articles on www.industrialheating.com based on page views in 2021. This ranking applies only to articles published in 2021.

As our 90th-anniversary year winds to a close, we take a look at an updated reader resource affectionately called the Heat Treat Wheel. Some years ago, we created this source of reader-chosen “evergreen” articles for all of our topic categories. It can be found under our “Featured” tab by clicking on “Heat Treatment Processes.” Admittedly, it looks more like a pie than a wheel, but the wheel is a better metaphor, so we will continue to use that name.

Industrial Heating is hosting three free webinars over the next three weeks, including two in the next couple of days. “Users of Industrial Hydrogen Look Beyond Delivered for Security of Supply” will be held tomorrow, November 30, at 11:00 a.m. (EST). “How to Help Your Customers Decide to Reshore” will be held Thursday, December 2, at 2:00 p.m. (EST), and “Grinding and Polishing of Sample Materials for Microstructural Analysis and Hardness Testing” will be held Tuesday, December 14, at 2:00 p.m. (EST). Registration for these webinars is free.

Registration for IHEA’s Fundamentals of Industrial Process Heating Online Learning Course is now open. Scheduled to begin January 17, 2022, the six-week class will run through February 27. The flexible online format and interactive forums are just some of the benefits of this class. The curriculum includes the basics of heat transfer, fuels and combustion, energy use, furnace design, refractories, automatic control, and atmospheres as applied to industrial process heating. Weekly coursework, quizzes and a final-exam project are administered to guide students on their progress and evaluate their knowledge of the material.

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.

This article looks at the benefits of scalable and configurable induction power supplies.

Ajax TOCCO Magnethermic acquired assets of IQ Technologies Inc. Cleveland, Ohio-based IQ Technologies has been commercializing an intensive quenching (IQ) process for steel parts in the U.S. and overseas for the past 20 years. The IQ process is an effective and alternative way of quenching steel parts. Developed by Dr. Kobasko of Ukraine in 1964, it presents a very rapid and uniform cooling of steel products in water with cooling rates several times greater than that of conventional quenching in agitated oil or polymer. The IQ process is interrupted at an optimal time when the surface compressive stresses reach their maximum value and the part hardened layer reaches its optimal depth. A proprietary computer program is used for determining an optimal dwell time for steel parts of different shapes and dimensions.

Thermal-processing companies around the world are feeling pressure to lower the environmental impact of their operations and make them more sustainable. These pressures are coming from both governmental regulations and societal expectations, resulting in increasingly stringent requirements that are expanding globally. Many companies are accelerating their own “green” initiatives and programs to leap ahead of these regulations and lead this transformation for their industry. Join this free webinar, sponsored by Honeywell, on June 3 at 11:00 a.m. (EDT) to learn more about the solutions that are available today to help achieve your sustainability goals.

This article takes a look at a few common automotive parts and sees how heat treatment is used to make them better.