Applied research · Cold Facts column #5 · March 2026
Cryogenic Treatment Opportunities in the Heat Treat Market
This column looks past hardness and wear to markets heat treaters tend to overlook because they judge cryogenic treatment by the size limits of today's chambers.
By Jack Cahn, Chief Technologist · First published in Cold Facts, Cryogenic Society of America, Vol. 42 No. 1, March 2026
Key points
- Power: DCT has been shown to raise aluminum conductivity permanently by up to 1.5%, relevant to steel-reinforced aluminum power lines and copper transformer parts.
- Marine, offshore and energy: blowout preventers, risers, valves, drill bits and erosion sleeves. DCT may let lower-cost steels match costlier alloys or tungsten carbide.
- Mining: crusher liners, SAG mill liners, slurry piping and pump parts.
- Defense, nuclear, additive manufacturing, electronics and Arctic ice-class steels are named as emerging areas, some still exploratory.
- Car-bottom and container-size chambers are what make these large-part markets reachable.
This is DCI's summary. The full article, with its figures and references, is in the PDF above.
Related on this site
The treatment service · Mining wear parts
First published in Cold Facts, the magazine of the Cryogenic Society of America, March 2026. Shared here by the author.
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