New Possibilities of Synchronized Heat Treatment By Using Small Batch Processing

Heat treatment of aerospace components faces today the following challenges:

• total quality control,

• advanced fatigue performance of the components,

• reduction in total manufacturing costs and last but not least,

• reduction of throughput-times.

  New equipment and new heat treat processes which have been just recently established in automotive industry offer new potentials for the aerospace industry as well.

  A recently introduced heat treatment cell (ALD-SyncroTherm^©) allows to follow the philosophy of „One Piece Flow“. The components are

• taken one by one from the soft machining unit,

• heat treated in time with the cycle-time of soft machining (“Synchronized heat treatment”) and then

• passed down one by one to the hard machining unit.

  If case hardening is the process of choice, then the components are low pressure carburized at high temperatures (1050°C) followed by gas quenching.

  When applying neutral hardening (quench and temper), then conventional temperatures and treatment times are applied. While this new concept of heat treatment has been successfully established in automotive industry over the past 3 years, the testing on aerospace components has just started.

  The paper shows results achieved with this new “small batch treatment” on aerospace components. The main advantages are

• improved homogeneity of treatment,

• better distortion control,

• dramatically reduced throughput-times,

• reduced costs for logistics and for quality control.