J. Kalucki, J. Szymborski, Nitrex Metal Inc., Montreal, QC, Canada
In a 5-year project, Nitrex engineers evaluated alternate furnace designs for nitriding/nitrocarburizing that could operate in a cellular manufacturing environment at commercial shops as well as in just-in-time plants. Ultimately they designed a multi-chamber, flow-through furnace using preheating, nitriding, nitrocarburizing, quenching and cooling modules combined into a range of multi-stage configurations and customized to the specific production requirements and application specifications of the customer. The design ensures easy integration into an automated manufacturing environment allowing production flow to continue uninterrupted. The furnace provides a better fit with just-in-time production, improving inventory control and production response time.
This paper will look at the history of the continuous nitriding/nitrocarburizing furnace, and customer benefits which include performance, cost and environmental efficiencies.
