The 7th Heat Treatment Forum, TRATER DAY 2024, organized by the AZTERLAN Metallurgy Research Centre and the Tabira Foundry Institute, in collaboration with TRATER PRESS as a media partner, brought together technical innovations from the companies Hiperbaric, Insertec and Trumpf, as well as novelties and new knowledge from the Basque Energy Cluster and the Forming Technologies team of AZTERLAN.
The heat treatment industry faces the main challenge of proposing innovative solutions that allow to improve the characteristics of the metal components used by industries subject to significant quality standards and high levels of demand (such as the automotive, aeronautical or energy industries, among others). Apart from that, heat treatments must also accompany their client sectors in their challenges related to sustainability, energy and resource efficiency or the efficiency of the manufacturing process. As pointed out by Garikoitz Artola, director of Forming Technologies of AZTERLAN, “although it is a mature technology, there are still many aspects of heat treatment in which further innovation can be made. As a broad technology, the new developments cover a very wide spectrum that can range from the heating technologies themselves or the fuels used, to the characteristics of the products, including, of course, the process development.”
In this context, once again, the 2024 TRATER DAY has brought together innovations and technical knowledge linked to different fields of development for the improvement of heat treatments. On this occasion, through specialists in the field representing the companies and entities HIPERBARIC, INSERTEC, TRUMPF, BASQUE ENERGU Cluster and the AZTERLAN Metallurgy Research Centre.
| Dr. Garikoitz Artola (AZTERLAN) | Jon Fernández (Clúster de la Energía) | Dr. Ing- Axel Frey (TRUMPF) |
| Oscar Meabe (HIPERBARIC) | Jorge Almeida (INSERTEC) |
Among the innovations focused on technological developments, the technical session was started by the HIPERBARIC materials expert Oscar Meabe, who presented his company’s latest advances in HIP (Hot Isostatic Pressing) equipment and HIP heat treatment. As Meabe explained, HIP technology “which combines high pressure (up to 2000 bars) and high temperature (up to 2000ºC) is aimed at densifying metallic and ceramic materials and, in this way, improving the mechanical properties of the materials, especially fatigue properties.” The HIPERBARIC representative presented to the audience a novel HIP technology that also allows for rapid cooling of parts, combining HIP treatments and heat treatment of parts “providing not only improvements in the properties of the products, but also significant improvements in terms of energy efficiency and manufacturing times.”
Focusing his presentation on a technological innovation aimed, in this case, at heat treating components manufactured by HPDC, the expert from the industrial furnace manufacturer company INSERTEC, Jorge Almeida, presented the new robot cell developed by his team. “This new rotary heath furnace allows working at various height levels, which makes it possible to adjust it to different production levels. It is an advanced solution that favours energy savings, the adjustment of production rates and the reduction of the space needed in the plant.” The heat treatment expert indicated that intelligent decarbonization, sustainable productivity, automation and control, and traceability and digitalization are the pillars on which INSERTEC bases their new developments. “Our innovations are aimed at responding to the transformation that is taking place in the industrial sector, mainly with the incorporation of new materials and the needs associated with the electric vehicle, which is leading our clients to modify their production processes and manufacture new component designs.”
With an eye on additive technologies, the expert in surface technologies from the German company TRUMPF, Axel Frey, presented the novel LMD process developed by his team for the rapid application of protective surfaces developed specifically for the manufacture of brake discs. “The new European regulations for the reduction of particle emissions identify brake discs, made of grey cast iron, as an important field of work for the automotive sector.” As the expert in additive technologies explained, several lines of development are currently being carried out to offer a solution to this problem, “in our case, the approach we are working with is through the development of protective coatings applied by means of laser technologies and the technology we have developed allows us to apply this type of protective coatings on long series of products and different brake discs designs”.
Moving away from the product and process vision, the forum also featured the participation of Jon Fernández, project manager of the Basque Energy Cluster, who presented the work being carried out within the framework of the Basque Government’s Net-Zero Industrial Super Cluster strategic initiative, as well as initiatives in collaboration with other agents in the territory to “boost value chains for the development of technological solutions for decarbonization”. Fernández, who identified “the decarbonization of the industry as an opportunity for technological development” also unveiled the DCARTECH Alliance in which the industrial clusters representing the main sectors intensive in energy consumption and CO2 emissions collaborate to promote business and intersectoral collaboration to strengthen their capacities through collaborative R&D&i projects in areas such as energy efficiency, circularity, electrification, new fuels or green hydrogen. “After having worked with the steel-making and foundry industries, heat treatments have been identified as a relevant field to act on due to their significant numbers in terms of energy consumption and associated emissions.”
Closing the session, and with the focus on rationalizing energy consumption in heat treatments, the last speaker of the day, Garikoitz Artola, director of Forming Technologies at AZTERLAN, shared some alternative heat treatment solutions based on some recent developments by his team. The AZTERLAN expert shared advances and practical cases regarding the use of rapid cooling processes that occur in welding, “in order to adjust the lead time and production cost to the presence or absence of heat treatment and the performance in service of the final component”; the adjustment of process parameters to achieve a reduction in process consumption, “aimed not only at using less energy to achieve the same result, but also at achieving an improvement in the end result”; and the use of forging heat to carry out in-line heat treatments. “This last area has been an important field of development that AZTERLAN has brought to TRATER DAY on several occasions and in which we continue to work with different alloys and components with diverse geometric characteristics for which conventional heat treatment is not applicable and it is, therefore, necessary to innovate in the way in which we add and extract heat from the parts as well as in the thermal cycle.”
