Inductotherm Heating IMZ Slab & Billet Heaters, Inductoforge & Hardening

Engineering Scope of Inductotherm Heating and Inductoheat

Within the global Inductotherm Group (founded by Henry M.

Rowan in 1953 in Rancocas, New Jersey, USA; first furnace built in 1954, first international facility in Australia in 1968; ISO 9001 certified since 1993, currently ISO 9001:2015; encompassing 40 companies, 50 product lines, 10 brands, and over 41,000 installations), the Heating division delivers

both high-tonnage mass heating for primary metal forming and precision induction heat treating.

Multi-megawatt inline heaters for slabs, blooms, bars, and rails are engineered by Inductotherm, while modular forge billet heaters and CNC induction hardening machines are produced alongside group brand Inductoheat.

Together, these technologies serve integrated steel mills, non-ferrous rolling plants, forge shops, and automotive powertrain manufacturers.

IMZ Induction Multi-Zone Slab, Bloom, and Bar Heating Lines

IMZ (Induction Multi-Zone) continuous inline heating systems utilize independently controlled induction coil modules to tailor temperature profiles along the length, width, and cross-section of moving metal products.

An IMZ slab heating installation requires only ~10 m of rolling mill line length compared to long gas-fired walking-beam furnaces, delivering rapid through-heating or booster reheating ahead of hot strip mills.

Because electromagnetic energy heats the workpiece internally within seconds rather than hours in a combustion atmosphere, IMZ systems eliminate heavy scale loss and prevent surface decarburization on carbon, alloy, silicon, and stainless steels as well as titanium and copper slabs.

For long products, IMZ Bar, Bloom, and Billet heaters bridge continuous strand units and rolling mills to restore corner and surface heat with closed-loop pyrometric control.

Inductoforge Modular Billet Heaters for Forging Presses

For closed-die press, upsetter, and hammer forging lines, Inductoforge modular billet heaters deliver uniform core-to-surface forging temperatures across round and square steel, aluminum, and superalloy billets.

The modular architecture combines solid-state power supplies with quick-change refractory-lined coil boxes matched to the required hourly tonnage.

Heavy-duty water-cooled skid rails guide billets smoothly through the coil tunnel, while an exit optical pyrometer and 3-way pneumatic reject gate ensure that only billets within the specified forging temperature window enter the press.

Continuous Rail Head Hardening and Mill Roll Hardening Systems

For railway infrastructure mills, Inductotherm designs inline induction rail hardening lines that austenitize and quench the rail head continuously, producing a deep, fine-grained pearlitic structure with superior wear and fatigue resistance on curved and heavy-haul tracks.

For rolling mill roll manufacturers and roll shops, vertical and horizontal progressive induction hardening machines utilize dual-frequency induction coils and precision multi-stage quench rings to achieve deep hardened layer depths on steel work rolls and backup rolls.

Statipower Power Supplies, IFP Technology, and Inductoscan CNC Machines

Through group brand Inductoheat, the division supplies solid-state transistorized Statipower power supplies (including SP5 and SP16 series) and patented IFP (Independent Frequency & Power) inverters.

IFP technology enables independent electronic adjustment of operating frequency and power output during the heating cycle, allowing true contour hardening of gear teeth, splines, and complex drivetrain shafts.

Turnkey heat-treating machinery includes modular Inductoscan vertical CNC scanning machines for shafts, axles, and spindles, CamPro camshaft lobe hardening cells, and CrankPro crankshaft journal and fillet hardening systems featuring real-time energy signature quality monitoring and closed-loop

quench flow control.

ACR Copper Tube Bright Annealing and Wire Processing Lines

For non-ferrous tube mills, inline ACR (Air Conditioning and Refrigeration) copper tube annealers provide continuous bright annealing under protective atmosphere immediately following drawing or finning operations, ensuring uniform grain recrystallization and clean internal and external tube

surfaces.

Additional continuous heating solutions cover high-speed steel wire patenting, spring wire stress relieving, prestressed strand stabilization, cable coating drying, and localized bar-end heating prior to hot upsetting of industrial fasteners and bolts.

OEM Forge Coil Assemblies, Hardening Inductors, and Power Spares

To support continuous operation of mass heating and heat-treating lines, we supply replacement refractory-lined coil boxes for Inductoforge and IMZ tunnels, non-magnetic water-cooled skid rails, ceramic liners, and CNC-machined oxygen-free copper hardening inductors complete with laminated flux

concentrators and integrated polymer quench spray blocks.

Available electrical and cooling spares include factory-matched SCR thyristors, high-speed IGBT power modules, water-cooled medium- and high-frequency resonant tank capacitors, heat-treat output matching transformers, quick-change inductor adapter plates, flow switches, and digital fiber-optic

control boards for VIP and Statipower cabinets.