Heat Treating

HEAT TREATING

Heat Treating is controlled heating and cooling of a solid metal or alloy by methods designed to obtain specific properties by changing the microstructure.  Heat Treating takes place below the melting point of the metal and changes in microstructure take place within the solid metal.  Changes in microstructure are due to the movement of atoms within crystal lattices in response to heating or cooling over a period of time.

The ability to tailor properties by heat treating has contributed greatly to the usefulness of metals and their alloys in an assortment of applications such as sheet metal for cars and aircraft.

Heat treating processes include annealing, normalizing, tempering, stress relieving, solution treating, age hardening, and bright hardening. Quenching, or cooling from a higher temperature, is an integral part of many heat treating processes when hardening is involved. 

Wall Colmonoy Dayton, Ohio has eight brazing/heat treating furnaces, including:

• The world’s largest top-loading vacuum furnace at 120” dia. x 180” high, available around the clock to meet your heat treating needs and they work in a wide variety of atmospheres such as vacuum, argon, nitrogen, and pure dry hydrogen.

• An Ipsen Abar 6-bar quench horizontal vacuum furnace, 48" x 48" x 60".

With furnaces handling work loads of up to 10 tons and quality assurance procedures to aerospace requirements, Wall Colmonoy Dayton, Ohio has the capabilities and experience to handle as much (or as little) as you need.

Wall Colmonoy Dayton, Ohio provides the following heat treating services:

Annealing is a heat treating process used to soften steels or to bring about required changes in properties, such as machinability, mechanical or electrical properties, or dimensional stability.

Normalizing is a heat treating process typically used to refine the grain structure of steels that have been subjected to high temperatures during forging or other hot work operations that increase grain size.

Tempering is a heat treating process that reheats a hardened metal to reduce hardness and to increase toughness so that it has resistance to impact, which means that the metal is able to bend without breaking.

Stress Relieving is a heat treating process that is carried out by heating below the transformation temperature of a metal. Its purpose is to relieve residual stresses put into a part during forming, rolling, casting, machining, welding, or straightening. Stress relieving is a time and temperature dependent heat treating operation, followed by a cooling at a relatively slow rate in order to avoid the creation of new stresses.

Solution Treating is a heat treating process that heats a base metal to a suitable temperature, and holds it at that temperature long enough to cause one or more constituents to enter into solid solution, and then cooling rapidly enough to hold these constituents in solution.

Age Hardening is a heat treating process that hardens a metal part by aging it, usually after rapid cooling or cold working.

Bright Hardening is a heat treating process done in a protective environment to prevent high-temperature oxidization and de-carburization, as well as to maintain brightness on the surface.

Wall Colmonoy Dayton also provides special heat treat procedures for magnetic materials and processes parts made with with titanium and zirconium base metals.

Call or email today and Wall Colmonoy Dayton's heat treating and brazing  experts will help you determine the best thermal processing or brazing service to meet your needs.