Press quenching is a tried-and-true process for the controlled hardening of flat, circular close tolerance parts. The process ensures good dimensional control and uniform hardening, thus allowing for seamless processing post heat treatment.

Quality control, EV components, energy consumption and material influences are just a handful of topics being discussed in heat treating today. New heat treat methods and global trends will be the topic of conversation later this year at Heat Treat 2023. Here’s a round-up of some stories circulating across key market segments.

It’s little wonder there’s more and more interest in the potential of lights-out or unattended production. The benefits seem immediately obvious. Staffing costs fall significantly if you can run equipment unsupervised, or with far fewer operators. Production capacity of the business greatly increases, offering the opportunity to add more customers without the expense of adding new equipment or staff.

In modern automotive vehicles, gear noise becomes more and more of an issue. The main reason is the reduced masking noise of the engine, which vanishes completely in the case of an electric driveline. Improved gear quality unfortunately does not correlate with a better noise performance in any case. High gear quality makes sure that the gear flanks are inside tight tolerances and that all teeth are nearly identical. Even if the running behavior of such gear sets shows a very low sound pressure level, the noise perception for human ears may be annoying.

The trend towards hard fine finishing of gears for automotive transmissions is accelerating. In recent years, the focus has been on increasing the efficiency of gears in order to make optimum use of the narrow gear ratio range, gear by gear, and to reduce fuel consumption. Surface finish, in particular, is under increased scrutiny since it plays such a decisive role in achieving the noise and efficiency requirements of gear units for today’s EV applications.

Gear Technology’s annual State-of-the-Gear-Industry survey polls gear manufacturers about the latest trends and opinions relating to the overall health of the gear industry. As in years past, the survey was conducted anonymously, with invitations sent by e-mail to gear industry companies—primarily in North America, but also including some respondents from around the world. Nearly 200 individuals responded to the survey.

The 2022 Gear Technology Buyer's Guide was compiled to provide you with a handy resource containing the contact information for significant suppliers of machinery, tooling, supplies and services used in gear manufacturing.

The American Gear Manufacturers Association (AGMA) recently applied for and received reaccreditation from the International Accreditors for Continuing Education and Training (IACET) organization for its educational courses. An IACET accreditation allows gear industry professionals to earn Continuing Education Units (CEUs) for attending AGMA courses. To celebrate, Gear Technology caught up with Stephanie Smialek, Education Manager, AGMA, to discuss the full breadth of AGMA’s professional development programs.

The story of finding—and keeping—skilled workers in manufacturing has been told for decades. It’s always the “next-generation,” that’s going to swoop-in and create a manufacturing renaissance both here and abroad. Yet, the conversation remains largely unchanged since as far back as the 1980s.

Furnaces North America 2022 (FNA 2022), presented by the Metal Treating Institute (MTI), in partnership with its media partner, Heat Treat Today, is the heat-treating industry’s go-to event every other year. FNA 2022 attracted attendees from across North America, including Fortune 500 companies. For three days attendees took part in networking, connections, and learning about the vast changes taking place in emerging technologies, industry trends, and advances in equipment.