Technical Center for Heat Treatment

The core competence of the heat treatment laboratory lies in the defined and instrumented heat treatment of metallic materials.

Our main focus is on:

  • Vacuum- und inert gas heat treatment
  • Thermochemical surface treatment (low pressure carburising)
  • Deep freezing and crygenic treatment – combination of sub-zero treatment with tempering
  • Measurement of time-temperature-transformation (TTT), continuous-cooling-transformation (CCT) and time-temperature-austenitisation (TTA) phase diagrams
  • Short term heat treatment (induction)
  • Finite element simulation of heat treatment processes

 

The range of services of the heat treatment laboratory includes the heat treatment of small series and samples as well as the optimisation of heat treatment process control and professional advice.

Our Range of Services

  • Standard and special vacuum hardening (e.g. with temperature controlled gas quenching)
  • Tempering and annealing in vacuum, inert gas or atmospheric conditions
  • Cryogenic treatment to -180°C (incl. combination of deep freezing and tempering up to 600°C in one facility and one process)
  • Low-pressure carburising of components and samples under strictly defined conditions (incl. optimisation of carburising processes for new materials, components, etc.)
  • Inductive short-term heat treatment of bars (hardening / tempering) for reproduction / physical simulation of inductive quenching and tempering processes
  • Simulation of heat treatment processes (microstructure, hardness and internal stress distributions)
  • Consulting in technical heat treatment of iron-based materials
  • Damage analysis on components and tools

Our Equipment

  • Single chamber vacuum furnace from Systherms with integrated high-pressure gas quenching (max. 15 bar) including integrated low pressure carburising and carbonitriding system (batch weight up to 250 kg), size of furnace  chamber: 400 x 400 x 600 mm (W x H x D)
  • Combined deep freezing and tempering unit from CES (-180°C to 600°C)
  • Inert gas furnace (nitrogen and argon) from Hofmann up to 1200°C (furnace chamber: 400 x 300 x 600 mm)
  • Various air circulation chamber furnaces (tempering furnaces) from Carbolite and ThermConcept up to 800°C (furnace chamber: 300 x 300 x 300 mm)
  • Oil and water quenching systems for specimens and small parts
  • Industry-oriented inductive test facility from ITP for inductive hardening / tempering of test bars (∅ up to 30 mm)
  • Temperature instrumentation of all heat treatment aggregates and on arbitrary positions of components