MIHEU, a commercial heat treater with 50 years of experience in the steel processing industry, has once again chosen an industrial furnace from SECO/WARWICK. The solution on order is the most versatile in the SECO/WARWICK product range, the single-chamber Vector vacuum furnace, in which large dies will be processed.
Vacuum furnaces for commercial heat treaters
This is the fourth vacuum furnace from SECO/WARWICK to be delivered to this hardening plant. The first solution – a single-chamber vacuum furnace with high-pressure gas quenching – was delivered to MIHEU in 2016. A year later, the Slovenian commercial heat treater received more metal heat treatment equipment.
The new furnace will allow MIHEU to increase processing capacity while maintaining high precision and quality heat treatment. The advantage of the Vector vacuum furnace with high pressure gas quenching — HGPQ is its large load capacity and workspace with the added option to make adjustments for an oversized load.
“This is an efficient and very versatile solution operating in the world’s largest commercial heat treating plants.. We have sold hundreds of Vectors. This is our flagship industrial furnace, perfectly standardized. Implemented over the years, it has a refined and improved design, and its proven reliability and numerous options allow us to offer our Partners an excellent product. The options mentioned include convection, directional cooling or isothermal quenching, which increases efficiency and effectiveness and enables the precision hardening of large dies. Vector ensures efficient processes in a very good vacuum and in high ranges thanks to the use of a well-thought-out pumping system. The processes efficiency is also influenced by the capacity to cool at 6 bar. Another great advantage is the furnace’s energy efficiency and excellent temperature uniformity in the cylindrical heating chamber, which is characterized by a very long service life, is easy to use and service” — commented Maciej Korecki, Vice President of the SECO/WARWICK Group’s Vacuum Segment.
When a wide range of processes and technologies is required — Vector is the answer
Commercial heat treaters are specialists in metal heat treatment and a very demanding group of recipients. Every day they face the challenges of processing various materials and a wide range of processes. The limitation for commercial heat treaters is primarily the machine park’s limited space, its effective use and at the same time providing customers with the widest possible offer.
“The Vector vacuum furnace will solve the challenge of hardening large dies, because it uses a large working space. Thanks to energy savings and the graphite chamber’s increased efficiency, it guarantees better process economics. The furnace is equipped with convection heating — a system which improves the heat transfer efficiency when heating at lower temperatures, as well as directional cooling, which allows for cooling problematic shape elements in various ways” — said Jędrzej Malinowski, Sales Manager, SECO/WARWICK.
Commercial heat treaters — a demanding customer
SECO/WARWICK works for the largest commercial heat treaters in Europe, Asia and America. The Group has supplied solutions to all the largest players on the market. As a metal heat treatment equipment manufacturer, SECO/WARWICK knows perfectly well what the specifics of a commercial heat treater’s operation look like and what parameters these Partners care about the most. MIHEU is a Slovenian commercial heat treating center with a wide range of additional services. Thanks to modern equipment, 40 years of experience and qualified employees, they offer heat treatment services, including traditional hardening and tempering in oil in pit furnaces, up to the most advanced systems for carburizing, carbonitriding, nitrocarburizing, hardening in vacuum furnaces and all types of nitriding, gas and plasma nitriding processes.
“We wanted a solution which would shorten the heat treatment cycle time. By expanding our machine park with a new vacuum furnace, we will significantly shorten the waiting times for customer orders. We decided on a product from the SECO/WARWICK brand, because we already have three such solutions and we are very pleased with their operation. It is worth mentioning here that we have a research and development laboratory that checks whether the final products will meet our customer’s requirements. In SECO/WARWICK furnaces, such tests are a formality” — commented Aleš Prikeržnik, Managing Director at MIHEU Slovenia.
