BERCO SUPPLIERS THE INNOVATION CONTINUES - Berco S.p.A

quality.
This type of heat treatment is
an alternative to hardening with
induction heating and has the
following advantages:
• greater quenching penetration
due to the heating of the whole
part to be treated;
• greater ease of checking
austenitic grain uniformity in
the quenched area;
• elimination of the thermally
altered area between the
hardened layer and the base
material;
• it avoids the preliminary
normalisation treatment of forged
parts.
PRODUCTIVE CAPACITY
At full power and in continuous
operation, the plant is able to
produce around 400 sprockets
per day (average cycle time 3.5
min.).
The tuning of the parameters
that control this selective thermal
quenching treatment has needed
a control on the size-variations
which the forged pieces show
before and after the process is
applied.
The detection of treatment
deformations in the
shape/dimensions of the forged
pieces has enabled us to establish
the dimensions and the stock
allowances of the raw, coarse
metal – which are necessary to
guarantee the subsequent
machine processing operations -
and the observance of tolerances
for the coarse pieces, keeping
the relative processing costs
unchanged.
At the present time, only the
sprocket production process has
been certified, while tests are in
progress on the carrying rings
to check the dimensions and the
metal-working.
CONCLUSIONS
The addition of this new plant
to back up the one that is already
in production will enable us to
complete the range of metalworking
features offered by Berco
on its products, to increasingly
satisfy market demands in terms
of quality and life-expectancy.
Giuseppe Beccati
Giuliano Neodo
Luca Baraldi
BN33 • January 2003 5