PUBLISHED 2021 Heat Treat Today’s Digital Magazine: The IQ Issue
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How does [the Eco System] differ from historic IQ systems?
The heat treatment of steels, and in particular carburizing operations, have been operated in a traditional furnace under a carbon enriched atmosphere. These operations mainly take place in pusher, batch sealed quench or mesh belt furnaces with endothermic gas generators. They are often located in dedicated buildings with fireproof walls due to fire and explosion hazards. Even though such processes are commonly used, there are numerous drawbacks. Indeed, logistics are complex since flower in the machining line are broken between green parts and hard parts. Gas consumption and emissions are high, which results in a significant carbon footprint. Additionally, safety can be an issue with lax maintenance resulting in a fire due to flames that seep from the furnace and into the vent system.
PUBLISHED 2025 Heat Treat Today Digital Magazine: Annual Technologies to Watch
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BATCH LOADING WITH ROBOTICS
Bulk goods-loading (such as clips, links, and other small parts via weight detection) as well as loading and unloading of truck shafts in fixtures and in straightening machines are just a few examples of production areas that can benefit from robotics/automation. Visual recognition systems can identify gears/parts based on the diameter or by the number of teeth on the gear and can then sort them by these features.
Like the visual locating of the parts by cameras, they can also be used for tracking parts and loads within a heat treatment cell. A good amount of work has been done in this area for heat treating. This work covers part marking, tray/fixture encoding, and part weighing scenarios, and allows the heat treat system to accurately process all the different parts coming through the heat treat system with the correct process recipe. Need assistance with your process recipe or looking to do testing to improve metallurgical properties on existing parts? Check out our Synergy Center metallurgical testing lab or contact us today.
Some of the work being done has been implemented with a QR code marking system for each part before heat treatment. To ensure the correct recipe or heat treatment is performed on the proper part, this scanned code works with the heat treatment system controls to upload the correct recipe to the proper cell. This information can be further analyzed to indicate precise placement in the heat treat tray through virtual tracking.