L&L Special Furnace Co. Inc. shipped a dual-chamber heat-treating and temper furnace, along with an oil-quench tank, to an eastern European ammunition manufacturer. The equipment will play a supportive role in keeping key production equipment online along with thermal processing of munitions projectiles. The furnace has two chambers: the top chamber is rated to 2350°F and is used for heat treating various steels and other nonferrous materials; the bottom chamber is rated for 1250°F and includes a recirculation fan and baffle for tempering, stress relief or preheating.

SECO/VACUUM (SVT), a SECO/WARWICK Group company, received an order for a pit gas-nitriding furnace from a North American manufacturer. According to SECO/WARWICK, this will be one of the largest pit furnaces it has ever built. The North American company chose SVT because of its experience in gas nitriding and ferritic nitrocarburizing process development.

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.

Lucifer Furnaces built and shipped a dual-chamber furnace to a company in the Midwest that will use it to heat treat small tool-steel parts in-house in a timely manner. The Red Devil furnace has working dimensions of 12 inches high x 14 inches wide x 18 inches long in both upper and lower chambers. The upper hardening chamber is rated up to 2200°F (1205°C), while the lower convection oven tempers up to 1200°F (650°C).  This unit was customized with a programmable controller with an over-temperature safety system for the upper chamber and a seven-day timer with alarm for audible event notification.

Nucor Corp. plans to build a third TrueCore manufacturing facility to be located in Brigham City, Utah. The 120,000-square-foot facility will manufacture insulated wall and roof panels using continuous line equipment. It is expected to be operational in 2022 and will employ 50 workers. TrueCore produces insulated metal panels that are used as exterior walls, interior partitions, ceilings and roofs in the cold storage and industrial construction markets. With thicknesses ranging from 2-8 inches and widths up to 44 inches, the company’s panels and facilities are designed to deliver consistent quality and reduced lead times.

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.

Lindberg/MPH shipped two gas-fired hardening and tempering furnaces to the manufacturing industry. The large-capacity box furnaces will be used for the normalizing, austenitizing and tempering of forged components. The furnaces can accept a maximum load measuring 6 feet wide x 6 feet deep x 6 feet high, and the actual chamber is larger to provide clearance for parts. The outer-shell sidewalls and floor are constructed from 3/16-inch steel plate. The lining is ceramic-fiber modules that store low amounts of heat and have superior insulating qualities to provide maximum fuel efficiency.

Germany’s Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) will use a vertical vacuum retort furnace supplied by SECO/WARWICK for high-vacuum annealing of gyrotron components. The furnace will have a water jacket with a compact integrated cooling system. When open, it is 12 meters high, and the diameter of the usable space is 1.8 meters. KIT also required a specific level of high vacuum that will be achieved with the use of a cryogenic pump. According to SECO/WARWICK, the vacuum furnace will enable researchers at KIT to achieve a very clean process under vacuum and, thanks to its dimensions, will enable them to develop gyrotrons with larger dimensions.

Signature Vacuum Systems received an order from a United States defense contractor for a custom ceramic sintering vacuum furnace. The furnace, the fifth Signature furnace to be installed at this facility, will increase production capacity. Rated for 3362°F (1850°C), it has a graphite hot zone measuring 36 inches in diameter x 48 inches high.

Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) demonstrated that a new class of superalloys made of cobalt and nickel remains crack-free and defect-resistant in extreme heat, making them conducive for use in metal-based 3D-printing applications. In a study, researchers processed the cobalt and nickel class of superalloys and proved that they remained crack-free in electron-beam and laser-melting 3D-printing processes. According to ORNL, the superalloys have the material properties necessary for challenging environments because they successfully withstood the heat and also retained strength when stretched.