We live in the real world, and things break down or otherwise drift from factory settings. Patchwork repairs (that all too often become permanent) and temporary fixes are poor substitutes for properly planned and well-executed maintenance activities.

Extractive metallurgy is an area of our science that deals with the process and methods of gathering and isolating metals from their ores (i.e., natural mineral deposits) and in some instances refining them.

Sometimes learning more about a common heat-treat phenomenon can yield a deeper understanding of the underlying principles involved.

As heat treaters, it is critical to be able to justify the purchase of new heat-treatment equipment to management by being able to prepare a return-on-investment (ROI) analysis.

The heat treatment of steel often involves heating a component part into the austenite region (aka austenite phase field) in order to perform a thermal treatment such as normalizing, hardening, case hardening, etc.

The heat treatment and performance of high-temperature superalloys, and Inconel® 718 in particular, has always been of interest to The Doctor.

Heat treatment plays an important and – most would agree – critical role in gear manufacturing.