Heat Treatment Laboratory is specialized in alloy research, especially with regard to the chemical and physical metallurgy of materials and processes.
The set of furnaces deployed in the laboratory enable us to select the temperature-time cycles that can maximize the mechanical features of the material, with the purpose of giving them the best microstructure that will steer the process towards solutions and guarantee the highest possible performance.
Deliverables
Our laboratory is equipped with six muffle furnaces. Two of these furnaces can reach a maximum temperature of 1300 °C, achievable thanks to two silicon carbide heating elements. The remaining four furnaces can reach 1050°C. Their heating-up speed ranges between 200¸300 °C/h, whereas the closed-furnace cooling-down velocity falls within 60 ¸ 80°C/h.
Such facilities carry out water quenching and oil quenching treatments, which are then followed by forced air cooling in the case of small-sized samples, if required.
The temperature evolution is registered by thermocouples. At the moment, temperature trends are recorded on paper sheets. Future implementations of the acquisition system will allow an electronic treatment of the signals by means of a 4-channel data-logger.
Focus on the laboratory
The following devices are available in our laboratory in Rome (Italy):
- An infrared ray heated furnace (Data-Trak), equipped with a quartz 50 mm chamber, which allows us to set up a controlled atmosphere for small size samples
- An apparatus designed to simulate welding cycles (SMITWELD) and the impact of the process on microstructures
- Two dilatometers (THETA and ADAMEL), which enable us to determine critical temperatures
- A Wolpert durometer
The laboratory located in Terni (Italy) is endowed with:
- Six heat furnaces with circular section cameras (five units with an 85-100 mm diameter and one unit with a 200 mm diameter), which can operate in controlled atmospheres (usually composed of N2, H2, He, Ar and NH3). Some of them can also control the humidity level and the ammonia atmosphere to simulate nitriding surface treatment processes. Three of them can be set at a maximum temperature value of 1200°C. The medium sample size is 80*300*2 mm (for flat samples) and the samples’ dimension can be changed in order to take into account the camera stable thermal zone
- A pilot line for continuous heat treatments, 110÷120 mm large and 0.20÷0.50 mm thick, flat sheets consisting of:
- A degreasing section
- A high-powered induction heating station capable of reaching a heating speed between 500 ÷ 1000°C/sa. The long furnace reaches a maximum temperature of 950°C, which is composed of several thermically different sections that can be managed simultaneously at different atmospheres (N2, H2, He, Ar and NH3)
- A cooling section that adopts liquid and gas jet coolers
- A deposition section
- A drying furnace.
