Intelligent heat treatment atmosphere optimisation and cloud-based advisor services

Guido Plicht, Maximus Akuh, Liang He, Rana Ghosh, David Millington

While closed loop atmosphere control in carburising is state of the art, nitrogen-based atmospheres for carbon steel annealing, hardening and sintering furnaces are commonly operated with fixed flow rate settings. Without proper atmosphere control, these processes suffer from the risks of decarburisation or surface oxidation. The emerging trends in Industry 4.0 involving smart sensors, real-time process monitoring, and data analytics have allowed the development of an intelligent annealing furnace atmosphere advisor system for operating these heat treating processes in the desired thermodynamic condition. The atmosphere monitoring and control system also provides real-time alarms if deviations occur in the process and deliver valuable information about the atmosphere performance and utility supply. Operating parameters are collected through various sensors installed on the furnace, which are used for thermodynamic calculations of furnace atmosphere and for feedback about changes influencing the furnace conditions. This atmosphere monitoring and advising system adjusts the heat treatment atmosphere automatically based on optimised set-points for different products. As a result, atmosphere costs can also be optimised, with greater assurances on part quality and reduction of rejects. The advisor system can also provide guidance on furnace maintenance and utility supply. This paper provides an overview and case study of this heat treatment atmosphere advisor platform, which can be tailored to customer needs. It aims to provide the operator with enough information about the atmosphere conditions and trends, resulting in greater operational reliability and reduced costs.