[February 15, 2010] Inductoheat, Inc., an Inductotherm Group company, has recently designed, built and shipped a 600kW, 3kHz induction billet forge heating system to a leading supplier of automotive driveline components.

This induction system for upset forging is capable of heating 1.5" to 3.0" diameter and 7" to 15" long billets at a nominal rate of 300 parts an hour.

The power for this system is provided by a 600kW, 3kHz InductoForge® module.  The InductoForge® power module provides a finer, more accurate control for true billet temperature uniformity.

This induction system is comprised of several heavy-duty material handling features.  The start of this forging line is a 6,500 lb capacity bin tipper.  This tipper allows a bin of parts to be dumped into the step feeder for automatic refill.  The billet step feeder provides continuous feeding of billets end to end on the conveyor feeding system.  A billet magazine allows for precise control for the in-feed and exit-feed pusher assemblies.  An oval type coil assembly accommodates eight billets to be heating in-line.

Allen-Bradley® ControlLogix® PLC with PanelView™ 700 + HMI operator interface offers superior process control capabilities.  An infrared temperature pyrometer for billet measurement and accept/reject functions assures the highest quality and repeatability for every induction heated billet.

Other features include:

• Robot communication for unloading and reject heated billets.
• Digital and analog temperature recording devices for process control.

Inductoheat, Inc., located in Michigan in the US, designs, builds and repairs standard, general purpose and customized, fully automated induction heating systems for: Hardening and tempering, billet and bar forge heating, shrink fitting and stress relieving, 10" or less strip and slab heating, copper tube annealing, bonding and brazing, curing of paints, plastics and other coatings.

Click here to visit Inductoheat's website:  www.inductoheat.com/news.php

InductoForge is a trademark of Inductoheat, Inc.

Allen-Bradley is a trademark of Allen-Bradley Company, LLC.

ControlLogix and PanelView are trademarks of Rockwell Automation, Inc.