Technology Leveraging

[rappai]

Dear forum community,

 

I am a student at the University of Economics and Business in Vienna, Austria. We are currently working on a project and our task is to find new application fields for an existing heat treatment technology. As part of the project, we are supposed to conduct field research and collect as many potential areas and ideas as possible. We would be very thankful for any kind of contribution!

 

The main feature of the heat treatment technology is that it enables to change a material’s properties and structure. In principle, the treatment of any kind of material is conceivable and it is also possible to apply the technology to toxic/hazardous materials or if toxic substances are released in the process.

 

Questions we would like you to ask yourself:

Do you experience a high degree of wearout or breaking parts somewhere in your everyday life?

Do you work with parts/components with a high degree of wearout which consequently have to be replaced frequently?

Would a process that enables a precise forecast/controllability of the outcome (treatment under constant conditions; less rejects) be of use for you?

 

Do you experience any of those problems or do you know people who experience similar problems which can be solved/addressed by these benefits? Furthermore, can you think of any other areas where these points could be an issue?

Thanks a lot in advance!

[Enthalpy]

Willkommen!

 

I feel that "heat treatment technology" is a bit vague. Apparently (sorry if I misinterpret) you include varied materials, varied processes, for varied applications - carried out by very different companies for very different customers. Such a large study would, to my opinion, put artificially together some fields that I'd keep distinct. Not the same people, or not at the same time, are interested by the heat treatment of alloys and by the destruction of toxic substances - so a study including both (or more) would be less well targeted (to my taste).

 

I suppose you'll get more answers here if you define the class of materials you consider. Alloys? Waste? Food?

 

"The treatment of any kind of material is conceivable" not always. Most ceramics, some alloys have zero response to heat treatment. Other materials are destroyed before their properties change usefully.

 

Wearout and breaks... It does happen. Wearout is difficult to predict, so if it arises, the developer more often changes the material of the shape than the heat treatment. Treatment would be an answer, but other methods have a bigger influence - and when the result is difficult to predict accurately, one likes strong means of corrective action.

 

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One example I can think of is not related with wear but just with plain strength. Few titanium alloys are readily available, the only one bringing arguable advantages over steel is Ti-Al6V4, and this one is always delivered annealed (German weichgeglüht). I'd like to get it heat treated (precipitation hardened, German warmausgelagert).

 

Other alloys that were traditionally delivered annealed are slowly becoming available hardened, fortunately: 17-4PH, Cu-Be2... to better fit the user's needs.

 

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For alloys, heat treatment is defined by standards which also define the resulting minimum guaranteed properties. Unless a customer has huge needs, he and the supplier will probably stick to these standards. If defining more accurate treatment conditions, work and trade outside these standards is a (moderate) difficulty.