This is a complete list of all the feature articles that appeared in FORGE, by month, in 2020. All articles are hyperlinked for your convenience.

Boston Metal raised $50 million in Series B funding, positioning the company to accelerate industrial-scale deployments of its molten oxide electrolysis (MOE) technology toward emissions-free steel. The company’s MOE technology uses electricity to transform metals from a raw oxide form into high-purity molten metal products, facilitating CO₂ emissions-free steel production from a wide array of iron ores in a potentially more efficient, less costly and more sustainable approach.

A 400°F (204°C) electrically heated shelf oven has workspace dimensions measuring 56 inches wide x 30 inches deep x 60 inches high.

Nucor Steel has an extensive special bar quality (SBQ) steel program that dates back to the conversion of its plants in South Carolina, Tennessee and Nebraska to handle the product decades ago. In 2002, the company purchased an idled plant in Tennessee that was dedicated to SBQ production.

Pulse plasma offers significantly more precision in nitriding through the control of the mixture of gases, the controllability of glow-discharge intervals, the design of the pulsed signal and the use of a highly insulated hot-wall nitride furnace. Together with innovations in the design of the furnaces to streamline batch management in nitriding operations, forgers can benefit from dies with superior surface hardness, wear resistance, heat resistance and fatigue strength.

Additive manufacturing (AM) has rapidly evolved since its inception, and investment in AM technology has flourished in both the public and private sectors. This article, the first of two parts, evaluates predictions made in FORGE in 2012 and illustrates some appropriate applications that could affect (or already have affected) forging processes and markets.

Dragon Steel Corp. Ltd., a subsidiary of China Steel Corp. located in Taichung, Taiwan, granted SMS Concast, a company of SMS group, the final acceptance certificate (FAC) for the modernization of its six-strand billet caster. The objective of the revamp was to improve the billet quality for applications including fasteners, welding rod, mechanical components and others. The project, which consisted of an automation upgrade and the introduction of dynamic secondary air-mist cooling (COOL-DSC) as the main modernization measures, has achieved a distinct improvement in product quality in terms of internal structure and surface cracking. 

Andritz received an order from Thyssenkrupp rothe erde (Xuzhou) Ring Mill Co. Ltd. to supply eight chamber forging furnaces for its plant in Xuzhou, China. Thyssenkrupp rothe erde manufactures slewing bearings and seamless rolled rings used in applications ranging from industrial machinery, automotive engineering and aerospace facilities to wind turbines and tunnel-boring machines. Andritz’s scope of supply includes engineering, manufacturing, electrical equipment and automation software. The furnaces will include low-NOx burners that will minimize emissions and fuel consumption. Start-up is scheduled for the first quarter of 2022.

Anhui Anhuang Machinery Co. Ltd. placed an order with SMS group for a fully automatic closed-die forging line for pistons. The 2,500-ton line consists of a fully automatic closed-die forging press and an induction heating system from SMS Elotherm for heating the forging blanks. Anhui Anhuang will be one of the first automotive suppliers in China that is capable of manufacturing pistons for cars and trucks in a fully automated process. Commissioning is scheduled for the second quarter of 2022.

If you’re at all like me, you wonder which articles get the most attention on our website. Every year we publish around 25 feature articles, and at the end of the year we gather statistics to see which ones get the most page views. So, without further ado, here are the five most-viewed articles on www.forgemag.com based on page views. This ranking applies only to articles published in 2020.