The company designs and builds high-precision tooling for aerospace, marine, wind energy and transportation customers.
The furnace measures 22m long by 7.3m wide by 3.4m tall (72 ft long, 24 ft wide and 11 ft high), making it one of the largest in the US. Expansion plans to accommodate even larger projects were built into the design and construction of the furnace. The design enables a loaded semi-truck to drive into the furnace with the part, using steel rail tracks for stability and strength.
President John Janicki said: "The furnace is a natural progression in our tooling capabilities. With this and the 2009 addition of two more large-scale high-precision mills, we provide full service tooling solutions in both metal and composites."
Annealing is used on metal tools and parts that have been welded or cast. This is also called heat-treating or stress relief. The process is used on metal tools and parts that contain localized stress. The process of heating the metal to a high temperature, then allowing it to cool, enables molecules to loosen and realign, relieving any built up stresses and providing dimensional stability during subsequent processing.
The new Janicki annealing furnace can be adjusted in temperature to cure composites, ceramics and thermoplastics, as well as metals, such as various steel products and specialty metal alloys such as Invar.
