The addition of a hydroform deep-draw press from Quintus Technologies brings increased capacity, flexibility and production efficiencies to aerospace parts manufacturer Aeroforma Technologies. Installed at the company’s facility in Cheltenham, United Kingdom, the press uses hydraulic pressure up to 11,600 psi to form parts in a variety of shapes, thicknesses and tough materials. Proprietary flexible-forming technology enables the press to perform four forming operations in a single machine. In addition to block tool forming, cavity tool forming and expansion forming, it is also equipped with a movable punch forming system for deep drawing of intricate shapes.

Here is a complete list of all the feature articles – by topic – that appeared in Industrial Heating in 2020. The month each article appeared in is included. All articles are hyperlinked for your convenience.

Ellwood Aluminum of Hubbard, Ohio, says that it has manufactured the largest cross-section sized aluminum slab ever produced in North America. In partnership with Wagstaff, Ellwood Aluminum cast an aluminum slab that weighed over 95,000 pounds. It will be used for injection mold dies. With dedicated melting and holding furnaces and a casting pit capable of lengths up to 360 inches, Ellwood Aluminum produces rectangular aluminum slabs that are made to customer specifications and preferred chemistries and alloys. The company’s aluminum slabs are also approved by international and U.S. rolling mills.

SMS group supplied a high-frequency tube welding line to Spain’s Bornay SL. The tube welding line enables Bornay to produce high-quality tubes with round, square or rectangular cross sections and yield points up to 1,200 MPa. It can produce tubes with diameters of 10-40 mm and wall thicknesses up to 4.5 mm. Tubes with square cross sections are manufactured in dimensions up to 30 x 30 mm and rectangular products in dimensions up to 40 x 20 mm with wall thicknesses up to 4 mm.

Tenova received an order from Italy’s NLMK Verona for the turnkey supply of a 70-ton vacuum oxygen decarburization (VOD) plant with level 1 and level 2 automation and a deslagging machine. The scope of the contract includes engineering, supply, erection of all equipment, supervision of erection, commissioning and training. The VOD plant will expand the company’s existing production route, which currently includes an electric-arc furnace (EAF), two ladle furnaces, a vacuum degassing system, a continuous casting plant and an ingot casting plant.

Question: I was torch brazing a large-diameter copper tube into a copper fitting and built up a nice fillet on the top of the joint at my customer’s request. Someone told me that the joint I made was not a properly brazed joint but was a braze-weld instead. What did he mean? How does braze welding with a torch compare to what I thought I was doing?

Tenova LOI Thermprocess received an order from Belgium’s E-MAX group that includes engineering, supply, erection and commissioning of a twin-chamber melting furnace and a melting and casting furnace for the production upgrade and modernization of the E-MAX Kerkrade plant. Commissioning is scheduled for the beginning of 2022. E-MAX delivers sustainable, high-quality aluminum profiles to various sectors of the aluminum market. The Dutch branch in Kerkrade is the central operation plant in the E-MAX group for the production of extrusion billets.

Boston Metal raised $50 million in Series B funding, positioning the company to accelerate industrial-scale deployments of its molten oxide electrolysis (MOE) technology toward emissions-free steel. The company’s MOE technology uses electricity to transform metals from a raw oxide form into high-purity molten-metal products, facilitating CO₂ emissions-free steel production from a wide array of iron ores in a potentially more efficient, less costly and more sustainable approach.

Nucor Steel Florida safely started on schedule in December 2020 by melting, casting and rolling in endless mode from the first heat. Located in Frostproof, Fla., the minimill has a rated capacity of 380,000 shtpy and will produce rebar ranging from 0.37-1.4 inches (9.5-35.8 mm) in straight bars up to 60 feet and spooled coils up to 5 tons. Danieli’s MIDA casting and rolling technologies significantly reduce the overall CO₂ emissions due to the absence of a reheating furnace. Nucor Steel Florida will allow the company to satisfy the regional demand of steel rebar and recycle the scrap available in the area.

ArcelorMittal and Nippon Steel Corp. executed a definitive agreement to invest approximately $775 million to build an electric-arc furnace (EAF) at AM/NS Calvert, a joint venture between the companies located in Calvert, Ala. The EAF is scheduled to start operation in the first half of 2023. AM/NS Calvert currently produces steel-sheet products by processing semi-finished products (slabs) procured from domestic and overseas suppliers. The new EAF will enable the facility to manufacture the slabs necessary to produce its steel-sheet products. This, in turn, will enable AM/NS Calvert to shorten lead time in slab procurement, improve its productivity through utilization of self-manufactured high-temperature slabs and increase the domestic procurement ratio of slabs. The EAF will have a capacity of 1.5 million metric tons per year.