Heat Treatment Forum 2023
So, I’m back and I can rate. The organizer Karol Forycki did a great job and he needs to be congratulated. A good composition of lectures versus a good portfolio of companies that attended means that reviving this event after the Covid era is the right step forward.
On the other hand, from a technical point of view it is not a coup. They all deliver what they can, and what they’ve been doing for many years in basically the same way. In the past, big innovation leaps related mainly to low-pressure cementation are already behind us, this market is covered by ECM from France and German ALD.
So, if something is being talked about now, it is more related to carbonitriding and brake discs in connection with EURO 7. And since these are huge volumes of castings, I am very curious who will take it on the market. According to ACEA (Association of European Automobile Manufacturers), there are 278 million cars registered in Europe. Every car needs new brake discs every 50 to 100,000 km. EURO 7 says that the mandatory life of the car should be 200,000 km, and this is not possible without carbonitriding. So, it will be a huge hit both in OEM parts and in the aftermarket.
Regarding the vacuum, Jan Kowalewski, via video transmission from Korea, described how to choose the right vacuum furnace. But he did not describe where to buy it. There are only a few European furnace manufacturers left in Europe, mainly TAV Vacuum Furnaces (I) and ECM Furnaces (F). Ipsen has been producing vacuum furnaces in the USA for a long time, and others established on our market are gradually moving to IVA Schmetz Industrial Furnaces (Shanghai) Co.,Ltd. I don’t even want to think about it…
We can also mention the trend in washing for heat treatment and chemical-heat treatment, where water baths are more oriented towards surface technologies such as nitriding, nitrocarburizing, PVD and PACVD coatings, for hardening in oil there is an increasing return to perchloethylene or to modified alcohols.
This results both from the nature of the impurities and from the energy requirement. It requires 4 times more energy to heat a water bath than perchlorethylene or other types of solvents. And since chlorinated hydrocarbons or modified alcohols are used at the lowest possible temperature, all the heat the washer needs are only to develop enough steam for the final wetting of the surface and for redistillation. So, we do not heat cubic meters of water, but only litres of the used medium. The energy savings are more than clear.
Pawel Danielewitz, specialist in the processing of titanium alloys from England, was newly inducted into the hall of excellence. An excellent choice these days. Daniel is the director of Titanium Heat Treatment Services Ltd, http://www.tht-s.co.uk/ specializing in the processing of titanium and nickel alloys and aluminium.
And who are the actual recipients of this award in the past:
- 2014 – Michel J. Korwin, Nitrex
- 2015 – Janusz Kowalewski, Ipsen Asia
- 2016 – Hans Veltrop, Bodycote
- 2017 – Greg Matula, Head of Furnace Design Engineering at H.C. Starck
- 2018 – Bartolomej Olejnik, Aalberts Surface Technologies, Poland
- 2019 – Jiří Stanislav, JST Consultancy, Bodycote HT, CZ
- 2023 – Pawel Danielewitz
April 21, 2023
Jiří Stanislav
