Carburizing, Safety and Environmental Considerations: Presented by David Pye Pye Metallurgical International Consulting

Carburizing,
Safety and
Environmental
Considerations
Presented by
David Pye
Pye Metallurgical International Consulting
1
Copyright© 2016 Nextgen Heat‐Tech Solutions Pvt. Ltd. All rights reserved.
Carburize Safety and Environmental
What you will learn
• You will learn of safety in a heat treatment
environment including personal safety and
protective clothing including footwear.
• You will learn of health and environmental
considerations within the plant and exhaust gas
contamination of the local outside atmosphere.
• You will further learn of safety with furnace
atmospheres as well as gaining an
understanding of the toxicity of other gases
used in Heat‐Treatment.
2
What you will learn
• You will further learn of the importance of good
ventilation for air movement within the heat
treatment operation.
• You will learn of the basic root causes of fire and
explosion as well as some basic fire fighting
techniques.
• You will also learn of the maintenance and care
of fire fighting equipment.
• You will learn of the importance of continued
training of personnel in their understanding of
the causes of fire or explosion.
3
The Heat Treatment Shop
• The heat treatment shop is where metals are
heated up from room temperature to what
ever selected temperature's may be chosen
for the selected heat treatment procedure.
• There are heat treatment shops that will deal
with nonferrous materials, shops that will
deal with ferrous materials, and shops that
will deal with surface heat treatment such as
induction heat treatment or flame hardening.
4
The Heat Treatment Shop
New Hire Employee’s
• Not every heat treatment shop has the luxury of
employing experienced heat treatment employees.
• This may be because skilled and experienced heat
treaters in the geographic area of the particular heat
treatment shop, may not have experienced/technical
personnel available.
• The shop management is then faced with the
employment of untrained heat treatment personnel
which can be a very daunting experience for the new
hire to walk into a heat treatment shop and see
furnaces in operation.
5
• The writer has knowledge of heat treatment
shops that will employ a new hire employee,
put him with an experienced heat treater,
and in five days time put that new hire
employee on (for example) nightshift.
• This is almost like giving a five‐year‐old child
a very expensive automobile to 'play with'
showing him where the ignition key fits,
showing him how to change gear, and then
sending him on an errand to drive 25 km
away.
6
• As you can well imagine, this would be
extremely foolhardy. But it happens in heat
treatment shops when the company has
spent an enormous amount of money in
purchasing an expensive furnace, and asking
an inexperienced operator to operate the
furnace.
• For example, an integral quench furnace,
gassed up with endothermic gas plus
enrichment gases, can be likened to a live
bomb which is ticking.
7
• To some new hire employees when entering
a heat treatment shop/department and
seeing furnaces with atmosphere gases
present within the furnace process chamber
can be an intimidating experience for that
new hire employee.
• What the employee observes are row's of
‘Fire Breathing Dragons’.
• The Dragons are breathing fire into the
workshop when the furnace door opens.
8
Fire Breathing Dragon
9
Heat Treatment Training
The corporate management of the company are
now faced with the task of decision‐making in
terms of employee hire. Some considerations are
as follows:
• Employ experienced heat treaters or technicians
with dual experience of heat
treatment/metallurgy plus furnace handling
knowledge.
• Employ inexperienced heat treaters and allow
existing heat treatment operators/technicians to
train.
10
• Employ inexperienced heat treaters and
subsidise the cost of training by external
means, such as correspondence learning,
e‐learning, enrolment in school.
• Each one of the above has a cost
associated with what ever type of
learning/training is employed by the
company.
11
Train by existing
employee
Inexperienced
New Employee
Training
E learning or External School
correspondence learning Training
12
Heat Treatment Training First Rules
Without any doubt, the writer recognizes that

accidents will happen that causes cuts and
bruises. However there should be no need to
have to investigate the major accidents such as
are shown in the following slide.
13
• Furnace atmosphere explosions
• Combustion burner explosions
• Electrical shock due to tag out failures
• Broken limbs due to oil spillage (housekeeping)
• Oil quench spillage's on the shop floor
• Failure to wear the safety protection apparel and
safety harnesses
• Failure to wear eye protection
• Confined space entry
• Heat Treatment salt contamination
• Leaking enrichment gas cylinders such as acetylene,
propane, butane etc.
14
• Fire due to waste products such as wipes.
• Loss of consciousness due to other process
gases such as nitrogen, argon and other
gases.
15
• Organizations such as the National equivalent to
OSHA has publication that will address the safety
issues.
• The furnace manufacturers of equipment will make
sure that the safe operation of the equipment sold
to the heat treater will address the issue of safety
training on that particular piece of equipment.
• New furnaces to day are most certainly well
identified by making use of very visible external
labels on new furnace equipment. (In addition to
that there are most certainly local safety codes
issued by and shown in next slide)
16
• Local fire departments
• Local municipalities
• Department of Environmental Protection
• National Insurance and Fire Protection
agency (Local to the country requirements.
• Manufacturers Operation and Maintenance
manuals
17
• Treat everything as hot in the heat treatment
shop. Remember, even if you have only
tempered a component at say 160˚C, it is hot
enough to cause a serious burn to tour fingers!!
• Do not wear shorts, wear long trousers with
appropriate safety shoes with protective toe
caps. No sandals or sport‐shoes!!
• Steel is heavy and can damage your toes or
feet!!
• Wear long sleeved shirts, your arms can be
burned!!
18
Learn the temperature colours!!
19
• When working on salt baths, wear long
sleeved heat resistant gloves to protect your
arms from potential salt splashes.
• The lowest temperature melt salts are nitrate
salts that will melt at 150˚C.
• Neutral salts will melt at around 600˚C.
• Cyanide salts melt at approximately 750˚C.
(Cyanide is most toxic material and if it is
molten when it hits your skin it will burn until
it solidifies)
20
• Salt baths are safe to use (providing you
follow the basic safety rules of heat treating
with salts).
• If you are using any of the cyanide based
salts, please make sure that you have close
by the cyanide salt baths a cyanide antidote
kit. Cyanides are extremely poisonous.
• Work safely!!
• Do not take short cuts!!
21
Molten Cyanide salt bath at approximately 900˚C
22
Mandatory safety clothing
• Long sleeve heat resisting gloves.
• Protective shoes with reinforced toe‐caps.
• Overshoe spats when working with Salt baths.
• Full Head protection with a clear transparent visor
with full skull covering.
• Heat Resistant overall with long sleeves and long
trousers.
• Cyanide antidote kit (if using cyanide salts).
23
Operating with salt baths
• If operating high temperatures, (neutral salts
and cyanide based salts) Pre‐heat to firstly
remove any moisture that might be present on
the component and secondly to reduce thermal
shock to the component.
• Do not mix salts!!! Especially nitrates with
cyanide based salts.
• Do NOT quench from a cyanide bath into a
nitrate bath for mar‐quenching. A very violent
explosion can occur!!!
24
Heat Treatment salts
• With heat treatment salts, and because of their
toxicity, the salts must be kept under secure
conditions. It is advisable that the company
keeps an inventory count of all the cyanide salts
and the stock level.
• It is further advisable to maintain a log book of
ingoing salts in relation to out going salts.
• With cyanide based salt are kept they should be
kept separately and away from the nitrate salts.
25
• In addition, the salts should be kept in a well ventilated
and dry storage area. It is a well‐known fact that some
heat treatment salts are hygroscopic (absorbs moisture)
and if not preheated before adding to a heated salt
bath, there is a risk of a violent explosion.
• When operating the nitrate salts, do not allow the salts
to overheat their upper operating temperature limit
ability. Once the salts go above their upper temperature
capability, either an explosion will occur or the salts will
ignite and cause an exothermic reaction which is
extremely difficult to control and extinguish.
26
• Be aware that one must never ever quench any
component from a cyanide based salt into a mar‐
quench (nitrate) salt.
• If this occurs, and very violent explosion will occur.
• If this occurs then the molten nitrate salt will be
blown out of the nitrate bath as a result of the
explosion. In addition the nitrate salts could well be
burning. If the salt lands on any person it will result
in extremely serious burns.
27
• Be sure that you have the safety
instructions for the use of cyanide based
heat treatment salts, and especially the
cyanide antidote (if using cyanide or toxic
salts).
• Keep the floor swept clean of salt drips.
• Do not dump waste salts into waste water
systems. It is dangerous to the local
environment.
28
• It should be mandatory that the heat
treatment management initiate safety
training course on a periodic basis.
• Even to the extent of reviewing the Accidents
that have occurred during say, the previous
three months.
• The purpose of the safety review would be to
establish root cause of accidents that have
occurred during that time period and what
corrective action needs to be taken.
29
Fire fighting
• It is strongly recommended that a fire and safety
training person be appointed.
• The appointed will report and recommend to
management safety training on equipment and
maintenance of the equipment.
• The primary task of the appointed person is to
monitor fire fighting equipment, recommend
personnel training and the frequency of such
training.
30
• The appointed safety training person must make
themselves conversant and aware of:
Corporate insurance requirements.
National Industrial accident, & fire requirements.
Emergency telephone numbers, & contact persons.
• It is further recommended that the appointed
person makes themselves known to the local
fire fighting department with the view to make
the fire department aware of the companies fire
fighting equipment, and to seek
recommendations and advice.
31
Fire fighting equipment
• It is recommended the basic causes of fires. This
will entail a very basic training into the causes of
combustion.
• A fire can be caused three component legs.
(Illustration in the next slide). The explanation is
quite simple. In order to have combustion or an
explosion three components are necessary.
• Which are combustion, fuel, oxygen. If one
removes anyone of these three items, no
combustion or explosion will occur.
32
Oxygen
Fire or
Explosion
Fuel Ignition
33
• When a fire starts in an operational heat
treatment plant is necessary to deal with the
fire without panic yet with confidence and
direction.
• Generally a fire is very likely to start in an oil
quench tank. Be aware that should the fire start
in the quench tank, it is not going anywhere.
• The fire is generally in the quench tank, so to
some extent it is contained. The golden rule is if
the fire starts in the oil tank is not to try and
extinguish it with water, but to starve the fire of
oxygen.
34
• This simply means either using carbon
dioxide extinguishers, or simply to cover the
quench tank with a fire retardant blanket.
• The purpose of the blanket is simply to starve
the fire of oxygen.
• Once the fire has been extinguished, do not
remove the blanket until the oil quench
proper has reduced its temperature to well
below its flash point.
35
36
• Perhaps the most common type of quench tank
that is likely to be a fire risk is the quench tank.
• There are three basic causes of an oil quench
tank fires:
a) A lack of understanding the characteristics of
the oil itself, such as what is meant by
flashpoint, what is meant by combustion and
its causes.
b) Maintenance of the quench tank; if applicable,
quench conveyers. Oil cleanliness.
c) Quench tank design.
37
Fire Risks
• Careful consideration must be given to the
selection of the quench oil for the ability of the
quench oil to function without decomposition or
saponification.
• The serious risk occurs when the quench oil
medium is heated to such a temperature which
is above its flashpoint so as to cause ignition.
• One should not operate a quench oil medium
that is within 35°C of the oil flashpoint.
38
• You have two choices when it reaches the
temperature within 35°C of the flashpoint
which are stop using the quench tank or
circulate the quench oil through an
appropriately designed heat exchanger.
• For good quench practice one should always
keep the oil agitating, this will also help to
distribute the quench medium temperature
uniformly throughout the quench tank.
39
• Some large capacity oil quench tanks are fitted with
a carbon dioxide fire suppressant, located above
the oil quench medium level.
• The fire suppressant system is connected to a bank
of carbon dioxide fire suppressant bottles. If a fire
occurs in the quench tank then the nitrogen fire
suppression should come on automatically or
manually.
• Under no circumstances should you use water to
extinguish the fire. The water will not extinguish
the fire, only aggravate it.
40
• If the quench tank is small enough, then one

could fight the fire with manual fire
extinguishing bottles filled with either carbon
dioxide, powder ( sodium bicarbonate) or
form.
41
Heat Treatment Shop Ventilation
• Because of the nature of the heat treatment shop, the
shop working temperature can become extremely high
and uncomfortable for personnel.
• It is recommended that an appropriate air ventilation
system be installed into the heat treatment shop. This
could be as simple as two doors opposite each other, and
opened to allow free passage of outside air into the shop.
• It can also be accomplished with a blower system fitted
above the furnaces and running the length of the heat
treatment shop with a strategically located ventilation air
outlets.
42
• Another method of ventilation is to have
located above the furnaces a fume extraction
system which sucks up the heated air from
around the furnace and blows it out to
atmosphere.
• There is a danger with this type of system,
which is, if there is any particular matter in
the air, it tends to settle somewhere in the
extraction system.
43
• If there are oil fumes being extracted, then
the oil fumes can attach to the particulate
matter. This then becomes a firetrap.
• If a fire occurs in the extraction system it is
extremely difficult to get at and extinguish
the fire.
• The simple remedy is to vacuum the
extraction system on a regular basis to be
determined by the company.
44
Maintenance and House keeping
• It is advisable that a regular maintenance plan of all
furnaces, combustion systems, electrical incoming
power and distribution panels to furnaces be
inspected on a monthly basis.
• Equipment maintenance is of key importance to both
management and customers alike. (This means fewer
breakdowns and more on time deliveries).
• Housekeeping is another major issue in a heat
treatment shop. There is no reason why the heat
treatment shop should look like 'a dungeon'. In the
first instance it is a health and safety issue, in the
second instance it is one of first impressions by your
customer and plant visitors.
45
Maintenance and Housekeeping
• Simple yellow demarcation lines around the
furnace working area will define the work
space of that piece of equipment.
• Hanging racks on walls for tools, shelves for
equipment, parking areas for trolleys and
mover carts. This keeps the shop floor free
of clutter, which can be a safety hazard.
46
Maintenance
Heat Exhaustion
• Heat exhaustion is a real danger in a heat
treatment shop.
• If the shop is not well ventilated and reasonably
cool air is brought into the shop, heat
exhaustion can be a silent enemy.
• The next slide displays heat exhaustion
symptoms and suggested temperature
occurrence's.
47
Heat Exhaustion
48
Heat Exhaustion
• Heat exhaustion is a condition which is a silent attack
on the human body. The exhaustion creeps up slowly
onto the human body in a silent manner.
• It is strongly recommended that the heat treatment
operators who are exposed to high temperature
operating conditions drink lots of water.
• Remember, that with heat the human body sweats a
great deal, thus losing body fluids.
• The loss of body fluids through sweat dehydrates and
weakens the body, so the body fluid needs to be
replaced. This will assist in reducing the risk of
dehydration.
49
Heat Exhaustion
Symptoms and treatments
50
Heat Exhaustion
Additional information Sources
• There are organisations (both domestic and
international) that deal with occupational safety
and recommendations.
The first organisation is:
Occupational health and safety of India.
The second organisation is:
The National safety Council of India.
The third organisation is:
The International Labour organisation.
51
Conclusion
• This now concludes the presentation on
carburising safety in the heat treatment shop.
• The writer has enjoyed preparing this
presentation for you, as well as making the
online video presentation to each and every one
of you.
• The writer and presenter would like to give
gracious thanks to HTCourses of Mumbai and to
the staff and management that has assisted the
writer in making this presentation.
52
• The writer would also like to add thanks to HTCourses
for their vision and foresight to bring to you the heat
treatment training programs. Without you the
student, these courses would not exist in India. I
would like to give my personal thanks to each of you
for your support and attention in subscribing to these
heat treatment courses.
• For it is you the student who practices heat
treatment, that can literally make or break the
product that you are treating.
• All that remains now is for you to take the 20
question test paper and receive your certificate of
completion.
• Yours most sincerely, David.
53

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Carburizing,

Without any doubt, the writer recognizes that

• If the quench tank is small enough, then one

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