Saturday, October 23, 2010

Magnatech Submits Proposal for A Phase II NAVAIR SBIR

Hi: It was just two short weeks ago that we received an e mail giving us the opportunity to provide a Second Phase proposal to continue the work that we have pioneered to carburize surfaces of martensitic stainless steels.  We have demonstrate  that we can carburize a surface to a depth of 1 mm and a hardness of greater than 58 HRC in less than half the time required for an equivalent depth  by conventional carburizing. MagnaTech has already applied for a patent to protect the technology that was developed. If the Navy accepts the proposal MagnaTech will continue their effort to improve the process and to scale up the process for application to surfaces of Navy components such as tailhook shoes and helicopter gearing for advanced aircraft. The immediate objective is to improve the wear resistance of the tailhook shoe without sacrifice of corrosion resistance. If Magnatech is successful in being awarded patent protection and successful in being awarded a Phase II SBIR contract, upon the completion of the two year effort, MagnaTech would establish a production heat treat shop to carburize or nitride first Navy parts, then those required by the Department of Defense and the commercial sector. In addition, MagnaTech would consider selective licensing of the technology. Any interested parties should contact Ken Moyer at moyer@snip.net or call 856-786-9061. Now that MagnaTech may have established this line of research, MagnaTech is concentrating on developing technology that will improve the environment by converting  sewer water to valuable product. Again Ken Moyer is interested in talking with interested partners regarding this technology.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Good News At Magnatech

Magnatech has just been advised by NAVAIR that they may proceed to write a proposal to petition for a Phase II SBIR award. If accepted Magnatech will receive an award of $750,000 for two years to scale up and commercialize a process to carburize stainless and low alloy steel tailhooks. Magnatech has already applied for patent rights to the technology that has been developed. The process developed will provide a carburized surface of a given hardness for a given depth in less than half the time that is required by those using presently developed carburizing processes. Magnatech is currently contacting interested parties that require surfaces that require wear resistance regarding the usage of the newly developed technology.

Sunday, October 3, 2010

MagnaTech Applies for Second Patent

MagnaTech recently completed two Navy contracts. These contracts were to improve the wear and corrosion resistance of tail hook components. One of the contracts involved development of a carburization process to improve the wear resistance to scuffing and gouging of these components while maintaining corrosion resistance. The alloy carburized was Pyroware 675. The feature of the development was that higher carburizing temperatures were used that are not considered practical because grain growth may result.  The MagnaTech process permits deposition of carbon on the surface at higher concentration, and owing to the higher deposition temperature, diffusion to a required depth of hardness occurs in less than half the time required of traditional processes. The process is also cleaner and more friendly to the environment.

MagnaTech shortly will file a second patent regarding a new alloy that they developed to satisfy the same requirements. The alloy developed is a powder metallurgy powder, water or gas atomized using conventional equipment. The atomized powder  is then nitrogen alloyed to produce alloys containing as much as 0.8 % nitrogen. The nitrogen is alloyed within either a vacuum furnace, using a partial pressure of nitrogen, or in a fluid bed. After consolidation into a part of net shape, the nitrogen alloyed part may be further carburized or nitrided to harden the surface to a specified hardness for a specified depth of hardness. A further feature of the process is that instead of nitrogen alloying the powder, conventional martensitic stainless steels may be carburized or nitrided in similar fashion. In many cases, through hardening to specified hardness may be accomplished owing to the deposition concentration and the diffusion that occurs from carburizing or nitriding at the higher temperatures.

MagnaTech now wishes to proceed to exploit the developments described briefly above. For more detailed information regarding the practice of these innovations please contact moyer@snip.net.