Start up of the furnace complex

In 2022, automated chemical-thermalline Profitherm 500/1.1 was successfully sparted in operation at the Petersburg Tractor Plant JSC.

Line composition:

• 8 carburizing and quenching furnaces;
• 4 salt and oil quenching tanks;
• 5 tempering furnaces;
• 1 salt regeneration system;
• 27 sets of baskets.

Specialists from RLM Group LLC, together with the customer’s specialists, developed solutions for the technical re-equipment of the heat treatment shop with a total area of ​​2 000 m² and a total capacity of 1 500 tons of product per year. This project has doubled the shop efficiency and significally improved the production quality.

The implementation of this project not only more than doubled the overall productivity of the shop but also significantly improved the quality of the products.

The technology of chemical-thermal based on bell-type furnaces is advanced worldwide and allows for the solution of a number of process issues unavailable in other furnace types.

Using molten salt as a quenching fluid solves the following problems:

1. Quenching temperature adjustment from 140 to 350°C allows for both classic martensite quenching and isothermal bainite quenching;
2. Minimization of changes in the geometric parameters of parts during heat treatment while maintaining the specified design parameters for the surface layer and core hardness;
3. Elimination of the need for additional cleaning of parts after heat treatment;
4. Salt is removed from parts using plain water without the use of additional cleaning agents;
5. Salt recovery from the rinsing solution allows for the return of up to 99% of the salt removed during quenching to the tank.

The furnace design minimizes the influence of the human factor, and all processing processes are automated. The high quality of products obtained through chemical-thermal treatment on the Profitherm 500/1.1 line is confirmed by years of uninterrupted operation at the plant and a high degree of customer satisfaction.