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.

Solar Atmospheres’ Souderton, Pa., facility commissioned a new high-production vacuum furnace. It will double the plant’s hydriding and de-hydriding capacity in the reclamation process of high-value titanium and tantalum materials. The furnace incorporates supplier Solar Manufacturing’s latest and most advanced vacuum technology aimed at safety and efficiency. The qualified working zone measures 48 x 48 x 72 inches with a weight capacity of up to 7,500 pounds per batch.  

TURBOLAB Core is a small plug-and-play high-vacuum pumping system for research and development, laboratories and industrial applications.

HEX@ is an industrial vacuum controller that serves as a control center for vacuum pumps and systems

By saving time, effort and money, remote diagnostics had already begun to transform industry long before COVID-19. Social distancing and restrictions on travel have simply reinforced their importance and value. This article looks at what this means for the die-casting industry in particular and shares a vision of a digital future.

Nitrex, a global provider of fully integrated heat-treatment solutions, announced that G-M Enterprises will make its official market debut under the Nitrex banner as of January 2022. The companies have worked closely together and benefitted from sharing their expertise since Nitrex acquired G-M Enterprises in January 2020. G-M Enterprises has supplied vacuum furnaces to customers in the aerospace, power generation, energy and commercial heat-treating industries for over 30 years.   

In 2021, Solar Atmospheres of Western PA reported it was retrofitting a vacuum furnace for use in a new metal injection molding (MIM) and additive manufacturing (AM) binder-removal technology application. The goal was to build a vacuum sintering furnace with a hot zone and pumping technology that would minimize and target the deposit of detrimental binders evaporating out of MIM and AM parts. The furnace has been in production for over a month and produced multiple high-temperature sintering cycles with positive results.

SECO/VACUUM, a SECO/WARWICK Group company, sold 11 vacuum furnaces to an extrusion die maker with operations in Canada, Mexico and the United States. The order consisted of four single-chamber gas-quench vacuum furnaces, six tempering furnaces and one pit-type gas nitriding furnace. The facility in Mexico will benefit from brand-new heat-treating capacity, while the U.S. and Canada plants will be upgraded with new vacuum heat-treating technology – in one case replacing legacy fluidized-bed operations. Each site will also receive upgrades to its water-cooling and gas-distribution systems with a full turnkey system installation.

SECO/VACUUM, a SECO/WARWICK Group company, received an order for a vacuum tempering/gas nitriding furnace with a load capacity of 13,200 pounds from a Toronto-based manufacturer of flight-critical helicopter masts, turbine shafts and engine thrust links. The furnace, which can process loads up to 63 inches in diameter x 175 inches deep, will be used for nitriding and nitrocarburizing. The Canadian company is adding new heat-treatment capabilities to handle larger loads and configurations and to increase production capacity.

Solar Atmospheres of California (SCA) added a small vacuum furnace to support its research-and-development and additive-manufacturing projects. Procured from Solar Manufacturing, SCA’s furnace manufacturing sister facility in Sellersville, Pa., the furnace was specifically designed to process a variety of materials between 600-2400°F (+/-10°F) in both vacuum and/or partial-pressure environments. Precise cooling capability up to 2-Bar in argon, nitrogen or helium is available with a maximum operating temperature of 2650°F (1455°C). The furnace is also equipped with the SolarVac Polaris control system for optimum performance and precise cycle control.