Technologies

Hot Air

Heating in normal atmosphere. This method is low cost, high throughput and well controlled, also larger pieces can be made.

 

Controlled atmosphere

Heating in controlled atmosphere, can be in inert gas including Ar, He and Xe, as well as reactive gas including Methane, Benzene and Hydrogen. 

Induction

Very rapid heating by inducing electric eddy currents in the metal. Usually used in continuous production. 

Vacuum

Heating in high vac or ultra high vac ensures no atmosphere interaction. This method makes sputter cleaning and deposition possible.

Applications

Shape Setting

Establishing the memory shape of a nitinolcomponent is the core purpose of heat treating nitinol.  The memory shape is established by holding the nitinolin the shape that you need it to be and then heat treating it.  We have general purpose jig plates, with screws on 1cm centers, for making simple, two dimensional prototypes or we can design and manufacture complex fixtures to make any part that you need, no matter how sophisticated it may be.

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Thermal Properties Optimization

Properly managed, heat treatments can optimize nearly all of the thermal properties of nitinol.  This includes, but is not limited to, thermal conductivity, specific heat, and critical temperatures.  By altering the heat treatment profile, we can make your parts do exactly what you want, exactly when you want it to happen.

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Mechanical Properties

Through proper heat treatments, the mechanical properties such as recovery force, stiffness, fatigue life, strain to failure, and just about every other property can be honed in on.  We have built single use actuators that recover 250% strain and we have built actuators with service life exceeding 100 million cycles.  What will we build for you?

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