Another technology institute has chosen SECO/WARWICK as a vacuum furnace supplier. A Vector® vacuum furnace with high-pressure gas hardening and the option of carburizing, carbonitriding and low-pressure nitriding will be used to develop hybrid technologies for steel low-pressure carburizing and nitriding, as well as the development of Polish technical thought.
SECO/WARWICK for research institutes
SECO/WARWICK cooperates with many research institutes. The current customer already has one solution from the SECO/WARWICK vacuum segment. The next order is for a small vacuum furnace with a working space of 400x400x600 mm, whose operation will be expanded with numerous options. Thanks to this, it will be possible to heat treat a large range of steel grades using a wide range of various processes from hardening through carburizing, low-pressure nitriding and carbonitriding. Thanks to the round heating chamber, the furnace, despite its small size, can be used to test and perform research on many sizes of parts including work with large dimensions.
“Research and scientific institutions constitute an important part of our customers. We have supplied furnaces to the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), which ordered a non-standard, 12-meter-long vertical bell retort furnace for the heat treatment of gyrotron parts, as a contribution to the ITER experimental fusion reactor. Also, for this project, we built a furnace for heat treatment of the insert in the superconducting central solenoid magnet for the fusion reactor,” says Maciej Korecki, Vice-President of the SECO/WARWICK Vacuum Segment.
“We cooperate with scientific institutions all over the world because we are aware that industry development depends on their work. Many groundbreaking discoveries have already been made, but I am sure that many more are yet to come. SECO/WARWICK has its own research and development department and metallographic laboratory — SECO/LAB -, where every day a group of experts and researchers work on new technological projects to make metal heat treatment more cost-effective, more efficient, and more ecological,” explains Sławomir Woźniak, CEO of the SECO/WARWICK Group.
Vector – the heat treatment ace
The Vector vacuum furnace for this institute will be equipped with numerous additional options which will allow users to perform diverse and versatile heat treatment processes. The furnace is equipped with FineCarb® vacuum carburizing, pre-nitriding for PreNitLPC® carburizing technology, low-pressure nitriding (LPN), and low-pressure carbonitriding (LPCN). This configuration provides precision performance in vacuum, ensuring the highest level of protection for steel detail surfaces, and the ability to carry out efficient hardening processes thanks to the use of high cooling gas pressures (15 bar). The advantage of the product is its compactness, economy, and ease of use.
This partner is a research and development facility conducting work in the fields of materials engineering and machine construction and operation. The company deals with methods of refining metal products by increasing their corrosion resistance and increasing mechanical properties, especially fatigue strength and resistance to wear in friction processes. The technological institute strives to disseminate and apply in practice the results of scientific research and development work, develops new technologies, and conducts service activities. The Vector on order is another furnace purchased by the research unit for the creation of new solutions. SECO/WARWICK is once again where innovation begins.
