GKN Powder Metallurgy opened its new North American headquarters and additive-manufacturing (AM) customer center in Auburn Hills, Mich. The 38,260-square-foot facility expands the company’s global 3D-printing network and extends its scope of in-house powder-metallurgy capabilities. Housing over 80 employees from the three GKN Powder Metallurgy businesses (Hoeganaes, GKN Sinter Metals and GKN Additive), the facility includes a 3,200-square-foot AM Customer Center equipped with two direct metal laser sinter (DMLS) printers.

Metal additive manufacturing or metal 3D printing are terms that everyone in the metal-processing industry is seeking to understand. The “what” and the “how” are becoming clearer every day.

Many factors come into play during the vacuum sintering process, from the size and materials used in the furnace hot zone to whether debinding and sintering processes are combined in a single unit.

Lindberg/MPH shipped a 2012°F (1100°C) crucible furnace to a research-and-development laboratory in the nuclear industry. The furnace will be used for laboratory melting applications including annealing, ashing, carbon firing, ceramic firing, hardening, nitriding, normalizing, sintering, solution treating and stress relieving. It is designed for use with a variety of crucibles, including alumina, mullite, quartz and metallic.

In the past, the applications of metal additive manufacturing, otherwise known as 3D printing, have primarily been confined to prototyping.

Kobe Steel Ltd. plans to invest approximately $16 million to increase the production capacity of its steel powder plant in Takasago, Hyogo Prefecture in western Japan. The production capacity of steel powder products will increase to 110,000 metric tons per year from the current 96,000 metric tons per year. Mass production is scheduled to begin in the second quarter of 2021. Kobe Steel will install another reduction furnace to enable higher treatment temperatures than the current furnaces.

Here are 12 tips that you will find extremely helpful when attending Thermprocess, GIFA, METEC and NEWCAST 2019 June 25-29 at the fairgrounds in Düsseldorf, Germany.

To continue a trend we started in 2017, Industrial Heating will highlight a topic on our website and list the most-popular articles under that topic according to page views.

Gasbarre Products Inc. (Gasbarre) launched a new website, www.gasbarre.com, with updated branding. As part of the rebranding initiative, and to more closely align with the end users of its products, Gasbarre has categorized its product offering into three business units: Powder Compaction Solutions, Thermal Processing Systems and Manufacturing Technologies.

How many hours per week do you work on average? How satisfied are you with certain elements of your job? What will be the biggest challenge for your company in the next 12 months?