Advanced Metallurgical Treatment

Metallurgical Processing

We offer a specialized advanced metallurgical treatment that goes beyond conventional heat treatment methods, such as quenching and tempering, to further enhance the material’s characteristics and to optimize the performance, longevity, and reliability of Mil-Spec metal wear parts. Our proprietary thermal cycling grain transformation process refines the internal structure of the material, enhancing durability, consistency, and resistance to operational stresses while providing material traceability. Our metal processing offers several advantages for Mil-Spec steel, particularly in enhancing its durability and performance.
 

Here are some key benefits:
 

• Improved Toughness & Wear Resistance: The process transforms retained austenite into martensite, increasing toughness and reducing abrasion and wear.
• Enhanced Dimensional Stability: Our treatment process minimizes distortion and warping, ensuring precision in military applications.
• Increased Fatigue Strength & Longevity: The formation of fine carbides strengthens the steel, making it more resistant to cyclic loading and extending its lifespan.
• Reduction of Residual Stresses: Helps relieve internal stresses, reducing the likelihood of cracking or failure under extreme conditions.
• Better Corrosion Resistance: Some studies suggest our grain restructuring transformation treatment can improve corrosion resistance, which is crucial for military-grade steel.

Potential Applications

• Improving the durability of tracked vehicles running gear: Track Assembly, Sprocket Wheels, Road Wheels, Torsion Bars, Final Drive Gearbox, Return Rollers, Idler Wheels all benefit from our treatment extending the working life of these parts and reducing the likelihood of sudden failure. Treated running gear can dramatically improve MTBF, reducing depot service demands, and maintaining the vehicle in theatre fighting rather than in transit to service or requiring service in a high danger zone. Drone warfare has made losing a track a very dangerous situation.
• Improving the drive train: Treating the disassembled engine and transmission while in the overhaul process offers dramatic improvements to performance and especially to longevity, potentially doubling the overhaul interval, while improving fuel mileage, extending lubricant and filter life, and boosting horsepower. Drive trains treated with our process are much less prone to sudden failure even under the most extreme conditions. Special note: much easier to start in arctic conditions of 40 below or even worse. All moving parts experience reduced friction and wear, with highly reduced abrasion
• Improving the accuracy and longevity of gun barrels: treated barrels will experience less distortion and twisting under temperature changes from potentially far below zero on cold barrels, to very hot while under rapid fire situations. This acts to improve the accuracy of the shot placement and improves overall targeting consistency. Barrel life is substantially extended reducing the frequency of taking the gun out of action for overhaul or barrel replacement, which can substantially increase the fires available to the battery, Additionally, by evening out the grain transformation to remove weak points in the metal and by relieving the residual stresses imposed by the machining processes, it helps prevent catastrophic damage to the barrel under high stress. Eg: 155mm barrels can potentially double or better their service life, dramatically improving a batteries fires and combat effectiveness, while substantially reducing costs and logistics.
• Enhance the properties of Mil-spec steel armor, making it more durable and effective in extreme conditions: Increased Hardness & Toughness: our process converts retained austenite into martensite, improving hardness while maintaining toughness; Enhanced Wear Resistance: our treatment refines the microstructure, leading to better resistance against abrasion and impact; Reduced Residual Stresses: Helps relieve internal stresses from manufacturing, reducing the risk of cracking under heavy loads; Improved Dimensional Stability: Ensures the armor maintains its shape and integrity over time, even under fluctuating temperatures; Potential Corrosion Resistance Benefits: Some studies suggest our treatment can improve corrosion resistance, which is crucial for military applications; Improved resistance to sabot and other armour piercing projectiles.
   

Testing

We generally recommend material testing with before and after examination and documentation by independent labs for initial batches, and field testing to help determine long term value. 
 

Such testing can include:

1. X-Ray Diffraction (XRF) examines changes in microstructure/grain structure. Can measure the internal stresses and detail transformation.
2. Electron Microscope (EM), can be broken into two different procedures:
     - Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) - shows surface morphology, fracture surfaces, wear tracks, and qualitative composition.
     - Transmission Electron Microscope (TES) - shows atomic scale imaging, dislocation structures, and local crystallographic data.
3. Chemical composition - Generally XRF, but can be done other ways as well.
4. Hardness - there are several hardness evaluating methods as well, depending on size of part, whether the part can be indented, or it is going back into service, etc.
5. Tensile, toughness and impact testing, but this requires specially cut parts to a "dog-bone" style.

Our processes are also of benefit to numerous other materials such as high carbon steel, stainless steels, tool steels, aluminum, brass, bronze, copper, nylon, rubber and various plastics and composites, and have found esoteric applications such as improving the polish of space mirrors (from grain transformation), to extending the sharpness of cutting tools (by up to a factor of ten), to extending the gear life of deep drilling bits.

We can provide bespoke equipment configurations even for on-site processing where high volumes might find that preferable.
 

We are also available to consult on a variety of materials and their potential transformation for improved performance. 
 

Please call to discuss specific needs, and test protocols.