High Pressure Gas Quenching for the Heat Treatment of Aerospace Ferrous Alloys

The aerospace industry is quite unique when compared to other leading industries (i.e. automotive, energy, medical, etc.). Meaning, the break-neck pace at which the aerospace market advances current materials and the need to develop new materials exceed that of your traditional industries. Aerospace vehicles subject their materials (such as 9310, Pyrowear 53, Ferrium C64, M50, etc.) that make up their construction through some of the most extreme conditions while requiring those materials to be as light and strong as possible. With very little notoriety, heat treatment plays a critical role in the success or failure of those steels. The aerospace industry commonly produces components (such as gears, bearings, landing gears, aero support structures, turbines, etc.) with complex geometries, increasing hardness requirements and stringent quality control all while attempting to manufacturing at the lowest possible cost. These demands drive all aerospace suppliers to continuously improve their processes to keep up with the ever changing developments. The heat treatment industry also is subject to these same requirements. High pressure gas quenching (HPGQ) in heat treatment is a highly desirable method of quenching a heat treated component due its many advantages over traditional quenching medias (i.e. water, salt, oil, air, etc.). HPGQ in a single-chamber, multi-chamber and single-piece flow vacuum furnace configuration have made significant advancements over the last decade as well. This presentation will outline these advantages and new developments in HPGQ and its associated vacuum furnace configurations that allow for the overall improvement to the processing of aerospace materials.