This article describes the experience of Sanova-Polytech, Inc. (SPI) in the creation, testing, and usage of new Liquid Induction Thermochemical Processes (LINTERPROCESS™) and Liquid Induction Heat Treatment (LINHEAT™) technologies, and in the designing, manufacturing, and employment of new automatic computerized production equipment, which can be of significant advantage to manufacturers of commercial vehicles.
Heat treatment and thermochemical processing of various metals play an important role in the global effort to produce stronger, lighter, and more durable machine parts at lower costs. They are widely used in the manufacturing of cars and buses, and farm, construction, industrial, and other machinery. These technologies have to be fast, simple, inexpensive, environmentally friendly, do not require preliminary preheating, and flexible with ability to work effectively in production lines and cells, and have to save energy, technological materials, labor, production space and transportation expenses. Existing furnace technologies do not have these characteristics because they employ volumetric, external heating for processing.
The patented LINTERPROCESS™ and LINHEAT™ technologies and corresponding equipment created by SPI, employ all these efficiencies, and will soon be widely implemented in various industries.
Fast heat treatment procedures in protective atmosphere such as Liquid Induction Annealing (LINANNEAL™), Liquid Induction Hardening (LINHARD™), Liquid Induction Tempering (LINTEMP™), etc., are essential components of LINHEAT™ technology for quality treatment of any metal product.
Such varieties of LINTERPROCESS™ technologies as Liquid Induction Carburizing (LINCARB™) and carbonitriding (LINCARBONIT™) are now available for the creation of highly wear, erosion, and corrosion resistant surface layers on various steels. Metal surface saturation by other element(s) is in R&D stage for the specific requirements of certain customers. No similar technologies exist in the industrial world.
The part to be treated along with an inductive heater is immersed in suitable technological liquid (TL) with necessary chemical composition and physical properties. Induction heating permits the use of any processing temperature for very rapid heating of immobile, rotating and/or movable parts through the inductor in cold, environmentally friendly, automatic equipment. Protective or active gaseous film is created from TL providing the required general or local processing of the part.
Computerized system of automatic production equipment controls all actions, treatment parameters, and prints simultaneously the processing data sheet and temperature graph for each treated part.
These innovations will play an important role in advanced manufacturing of various durable commercial vehicle components.