Charlotte Pipe and Foundry Company has been awarded a Job Maintenance and Capital Development Fund (JMAC) grant to support the relocation of its foundry operation from Mecklenburg County to Stanly County. In modernizing its production of cast-iron soil pipe, fittings and castings, the company will retain at least 1,050 jobs in North Carolina as it invests $325 million in Stanly County. At least 400 of these jobs will be based at the state-of-the-art facility in Oakboro, which is expected to commence commercial operations in early 2024.

Can-Eng Furnaces International Ltd. received the final acceptance certificate from Indian steelmaker SAIL for a roller-hearth plate quench-and-temper system. It is designed to heat treat a wide range of plates from 0.25-4.0 inches (6-100 mm) thick x 118 inches (3,000 mm) wide up to 42.5 feet (13 meters) long in a variety of grades for commercial and non-commercial applications. With an overall line length of 400 feet (122 meters) and a restrained roller spray quench at the heart of the system, the heat-treatment process results in true flat plates with metallurgical properties that exceed contractual requirements. The auto-recuperative radiant-tube-fired atmosphere roller-hearth hardening furnace and direct-fired temper furnace run off coke-oven gas (COG), a byproduct of the steelmaking process. 

INOX Market Service, a global stainless steel processing company based in Italy, announced plans to establish its North American headquarters in Delaware County, Ind., creating up to 101 new jobs by the end of 2024. The company, which has operations in Europe, Mexico and India, will launch INOX Market North America (IMNA) and invest more than $15 million to construct and equip a 139,800-square-foot facility in Muncie. The new plant will allow INOX to expand its stainless steel forming and slitting operations while growing customer demand in the home appliance and industrial sectors. Construction is scheduled to begin this summer, and the company expects to start production in spring 2021. 

Gasbarre Thermal Processing Systems shipped a custom-built atmosphere tempering furnace to a manufacturer in the aerospace market with captive heat-treating capabilities. With a work-load size of 84 inches wide x 42 inches deep x and 60 inches tall, coupled with a maximum load weight of 6,000 pounds, the furnace is specifically designed for the company’s manufactured components. The electrically heated furnace has an operating temperature range of 350-1600°F and passes uniformity at +/-10°F per AMS 2750E. The system is equipped with Eurotherm temperature-controlling instrumentation and an Allen-Bradley PLC and HMI. 

L&L Special Furnace Co. Inc. manufactured and supplied a high-uniformity, pit-style furnace used for annealing to a manufacturer of aerospace fasteners. The annealing process occurs when the parts are evenly heated to 1400°F (760°C) and held for a predetermined amount of time. Temperature uniformity is critical to this process, and both ambient and load temperature must maintain ±10°F throughout the cycle. The fastener parts are placed in baskets and loaded by an overhead crane into the furnace. There are guide bars to ensure that the load is centered and cannot damage the furnace liner. The program or recipe is entered into the program control, and the cycle is started. At the completion of the cycle, the parts are removed and are ready for inspection and shipment.

JD Fields & Company Inc. acquired Alameda Pipe & Steel Company, a steel products manufacturer based in Gardena, Calif. The purchase of the newly branded Alameda Pipe and Fab enables Houston, Texas-based JD Fields & Company, which has operated as a company of two business units focusing on steel pipe for the oil-and-gas sector and steel foundation products for civil infrastructure, to continue its evolution into a one-stop, vertically integrated supplier and manufacturer of its own steel products.

Nitrex, a Novacap portfolio company and a global provider of fully integrated heat-treating solutions and technologies, unveiled a new corporate brand identity. A new logo will be adopted by all the Nitrex business units. For now, the names of the legal entities will not change so customers, suppliers and stakeholders can continue to use the existing names and addresses in all official communication. The new wordmark for United Process Controls leverages its well-known trade name, the UPC initials, in combination with the company’s best-known brand asset, Marathon Monitors, to form UPC-Marathon. G-M Enterprises, the newest addition to the Nitrex Turnkey Systems portfolio, traded its metallic graphic for a single-color wordmark using the same typeface as the other logos with the addition of the tagline, “A Nitrex Company.”

To support an increasing demand for high-value gas nitriding, Solar Atmospheres in Souderton Pa., installed a vacuum gas-nitriding furnace. Built by sister company Solar Manufacturing, the front-loading furnace incorporates the latest nitriding and recipe system from the furnace manufacturer. The automated controls meet AMS 2759/10, Automated Gaseous Nitriding Controlled by Nitrogen Potential, in addition to the standard AMS 2759/6, Gaseous Nitriding of Low-Alloy Steel Parts. The automated control system is useful for single-stage and two-stage (Floe) processing. All hot-zone components are made completely of graphitic materials inert to the anhydrous ammonia used during the nitriding process.

OAO Belaz, a Belarusian dump-truck manufacturer ordered an electric roller furnace for the heat treatment of large bearing rings. The furnace is designed to heat treat bearing rings with a diameter of 980-1,180 mm. These rings are used in the production of dump trucks used in the mining industry. The entire line, which will be supplied by SECO/WARWICK, includes: a transport system with a set of manipulators, an electric roller furnace, a hardening press with matrix instrumentation and a control system with data visualization and archiving.

Alro Steel opened a 194,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Oshkosh, Wis., on March 16, 2020. It replaces the previous 66,000-square-foot facility. In addition to expanded product offerings, the Oshkosh location added new processing capabilities and equipment, including shearing, large-capacity saw cutting, shot blasting for material up to 60 inches wide, and automated equipment to clean and prepare flame- and plasma-cut parts for shipment. The expanded inventory and processing services allow the Oshkosh facility to focus on cut-to-size metals and next-day delivery to Wisconsin customers.