Heat Treatments and what they are used for

One of the additional services we offer is heat treatment.

The metals we print can be treated in the same way as machined parts which means if there is a specific heat treatment you require, it is likely we can offer that on site in one of our furnaces. 

For many of the parts, especially the 2000 parts we do for aerospace each year, we do the heat treatment in argon – even for Inconel and 15-5 stainless steel. This ensures that the parts do not have any oxide layers on the surface which helps for internal cavities etc and provides a cleaner and more reliable component.

This is one of our heat treatment chambers. Heat treatment is used to increase hardness, temperature resistance, strength & ductility.

As a guide:

H900 is used for SS15-5 to achieve a hardness of 43 – 46 HRC.

H1150 is a standard stress relief treatment and also used for SS15-5 – this also helps when post machining.

We treat inconel with a specialist heat treatment – talk to us if you want to know more. Inconel is often used in Aerospace and the Oil & Gas industries as it can withstand extreme environments.

Each titanium part is heat treated to stress relieve the part.

Stress relieving is normally done before final finishing such as polishing or grinding.