Intelligent heat treatment atmosphere optimisation and cloud-based advisor

Čížkovský Juda - AIR PRODUCTS spol. s r.o. (Czech Republic)

Whereas closed loop atmosphere control is generally used for carburizing, nitrogen-based atmospheres for annealing and sintering are usually operated by fixed flow rates. Without sufficient atmosphere control these processes have a risk of decarburization or oxidation of the surface. New sensor development, real time atmosphere monitoring and thermodynamic evaluation combined with the Industry 4.0 trends enabled Air Products developing an advisor system for heat treatment processes for operating the atmosphere in desired thermodynamic conditions. The system can provide a real time alarm on site and monitors historical trends. If a measured deviation is considerable it can provide valuable information about furnace atmosphere conditions and media input and supports identifying the reason for the deviation. Information of various sensors are collected and used for thermodynamic calculation of key parameters also providing a feedback about the atmosphere condition. The benefit of using the cloud based system is reducing operation costs of the atmosphere as well as maintaining higher reliability of process quality and reduce reject rate. The measured and calculated data and trends help scheduling preventive furnace maintenance and allow working economic by monitoring gas consumptions. This paper provides a basic overview and a case study but the system has flexibility to be tailored to the production situation and customers’ needs. The purpose is to provide enough information about furnace atmosphere conditions and trends for higher operational reliability and costs reduction.

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