The advantages of Low Pressure Carburizing in the Heat Treatment Subcontracting Business

Low Pressure Carburizing (LPC) was introduced in the 90's in the western Europe Heat Treatment business,mainly for in-house applications where it was especially appreciated for carburizing of transmission parts. However the success of the LPC units installed for gears carburizing in the automotive industry has hindered the development of the process in other fields - like subcontracting business -, where its advantages deserve to be enlightened.After a brief review of the principle of the process, the interest of its classical application to transmission parts is described,underlining peculiarly the reduction of the distortion observed when LPC is associated with high pressure gas quenching.Then the less-known advantages of the LPC process, like the high accuracy and reproducibility of the results, the modeling possibility and the simulation easiness, the case-depth uniformity and the full flexibility of the units are considered,showing how they can be beneficial to subcontracting business.