VOLUME 13, NO. 1     DEC 1999

New center will advance frontiers of heat treating

Diran Apelian, third from left, officially opens WPI's new Center for Heat Treating Excellence. Joining him are, from left, ASM International director Mike DeHaemer, HTS president Robert Luetje, MTI president Tom Benoit, MTI director Lance Miller and CHTE director-at-large Roger Fabian.

Metallurgists have known for centuries that by carefully heating and cooling certain metals, one can produce a number of desirable properties, such as hardness, toughness and corrosion resistance. Today, heat treating is a vital step in the manufacture of a broad range of metal parts found in everything from automobiles to computers to spacecraft. According to ASM International, the heat treating industry adds $15 billion in value to metal products made worldwide.

As an integral element of its plans for the next two decades, the industry recently established a new center at WPI dedicated to advancing the industry's frontiers. The Center for Heat Treating Excellence (CHTE) was created by a coalition that includes the Metal Treating Institute (MTI), ASM International's Heat Treating Society (HTS) and 58 industrial partners. The center, which had its inaugural meeting on Sept. 1, is part of WPI's Metal Processing Institute (MPI), an industry-university alliance with more than 100 corporate partners and research centers for aluminum casting, powder metallurgy and semisolid materials processing.

"CHTE closes the loop for MPI," says Diran Apelian, Howmet Professor of Engineering, head of MPI, and CHTE director. "It will be a significant catalyst to advance the scientific and technological frontiers of the metalworking and thermal processing industry in North America. MPI now boasts alliances with four sectors of the metal industry with a combined annual revenue of more than $50 billion."

MTI President L. Tom Benoit Jr. says that CHTE will be driven by the corporate heat treating industry and will enhance the industry's technology, profitability, public image and member education." HTS President Robert E. Luetje says the center, through collaborative research and development, will help the industry achieve the ambitious goals of its plan for the year 2020. "CHTE will provide the pool of resources and professional administration to accomplish the plan's objectives."

The center's initial projects are expected to be announced later this year. Areas to be researched include processes that would control microstructure and properties of metallic components, reduce energy consumption, process time and production costs, achieve zero distortion and zero emissions, and increase furnace efficiency.