Technology Trends in Vacuum Heat Treating, Part One: Markets, Processes and Applications

The last decade has seen double-digit growth in the use of vacuum heat treating and increased vacuum market share (Figs. 1–5) throughout the Americas. Vacuum processing is growing more than any other technology, due in large part to the demand for high quality, precision and repeatability of part performance in ever more sophisticated and demanding service applications. ach of the common vacuum processes will be discussed in this and future articles in this series. Annealing Annealing treatments are undertaken pri-marily to soften a material, to relieve in-ternal stresses and/or to modify the grain structure. These operations are carried out by heating to the required temperatur