Challenges of Heat Treatment Today and Tomorrow
Daniel Herring -- Herring Group Inc.The basic systems by which ideas become product are changing. "Ideas" which originate in the Scientific community, are passed to the Engineers which develope the concepts originate designs, and then move the the Manufacturing Facility where a product becomes reality.
Traditionally much of this has been "empiracally based". "Processes" are developed to obtain a "microstructure", which leads to "properties" and ultimately deliver "performance". Now we are seeing more emergence of the reverse process. "Performance" is the driving force, which dictates the "properties" and the "microstructure", and ultimately the "process" must be found to achieve this.
Translated into the Heat Treatment realm we see a trend to "eliminate Heat Treatmemt if possible", but we see price as being a controlling factor to obtain optimized material through Engineering optimizations, and Manufacturing Optimization. Today we deal with the enemy we know. Tomorrow we deal with the enemy we fear.
What are some of the factors that will dominate Heat Treating in the 21st century?
Energy Efficiency in equipment
Processes that do not distort parts
Optimization of Diffusion process and their control
Environmental Friendliness (less oil and organics) with Zero emissions as the goal
Advanced Material
Ingelligence in sensors and control equipment
Extensive use of modeling of the HT Process
Integration of HT into manufacturing so results are the same for one or for many items
Pressure quenching is gaining wide acceptance as the new control method for the transformation process. Now vacuum HT and pressure quenching serves about 1% of the hardening requirements. By 2010 it is estimated that this will be used for about 13% of these requirements.
Pictorial examples of gears were shown where pressure quench replaced "press quenching" at considerable savings and with environmental friendliness.
In the manufacturing technical triangle, we will see Materials Engineering fueling the need for better equipment, Product Engineering fueling the need for better and more efficient processes, and Quality Systems looking for more and better "expert systems" and models to control the processes predictably.
Finally, all of the major Government funding in materials work these days is going toward "nanotechnology" and the many promises it holds for "engineered materials".