Resources

Today, vacuum technology is utilized in every aspect of thermal processing including such industries as: Aeronautics and Astronautics (e.g., solar arrays, linear actuators, turbine blades, gearboxes, landing gear) Medical/Dental (e.g., instruments, implants, orthodontic braces) Automotive/Truck (e.g., transmission & steering components,[...]

Introduction Many of today’s vacuum furnaces are equipped with a partial pressure control system, which can be designed to operate with a single gas or multiple gases of various types – for example, nitrogen, argon, hydrogen and helium. Partial pressure is[...]

Earlier we addressed some aspects of vacuum furnace safety in our article: Vacuum Furnace Safety Part One: Hazardous Materials (January 1, 2018) and before we talk about confined entry spaces and how this applies to vacuum furnaces, it is worth remembering[...]

Vacuum furnaces are available in both batch and (perhaps less common) continuous styles with the vast majority of furnaces in use categorized as either vertical (Fig. 1a) or horizontal (Fig. 1b) in orientation. In this two-part article, we will discuss[...]

For those of us who participate in the Heat Treatment group of LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/groups/1855932), which by the way is 8795 members strong (!), an important vacuum processing question was recently asked and what follows is a stimulating exchange of ideas,[...]

Many of us who use vacuum furnaces are all too familiar with and have learned how to counteract the unintentional diffusion bonding that has been known to occur between component parts exposed to high temperatures and low vacuum levels.1 By contrast,[...]

When performing any type of vacuum heat treatment it is always important to be aware of the possibility of evaporation and/or sublimation of elements, which can be present in the material being processed, introduced into the vacuum system with the[...]

Vacuum deposition is a generic term used to describe a type of surface engineering treatment used to deposit layers of material onto a substrate. The types of coatings include metals (e.g., cadmium, chromium, copper, nickel, titanium) and nonmetals (e.g., ceramic[...]

The movement of gases is an important and interesting subject but one often dismissed as a topic best left to scientists. However, the Heat Treater needs to know something about the basic nature (theory) of gases and in particular how[...]

Since brazing plays an important part in some of your company’s products, plan to have one or more of your people attend one of the high-powered, three-day (Tues-Thurs) seminars being held in 2019. Contact your people today to have them[...]

When parts are to be furnace-brazed in commercial job-shop vacuum furnaces or in standard atmosphere furnaces, they are typically placed on a rack inside the furnace, and then the furnace door is closed, thus completely hiding those parts from view.[...]

When parts are brazed in a vacuum furnace, distortion of those brazed assemblies can easily happen. To prevent parts from distorting, people have tried a variety of things, including extended stress-relieving of components prior to assembling those parts for brazing,[...]

As mentioned in my article last month, it is critically important to be aware of the vapor pressures of any materials that are processed at elevated temperatures in a vacuum-furnace, because a vacuum can effectively lower the temperature at which[...]

Vacuum brazing is growing in many brazing shops today, to handle the complex needs of the aerospace, medical, and consumer-goods industries. The primary reason for this is that the amount of oxygen in any good vacuum atmosphere is so small[...]

Oil sealed rotary vane pumps (aka rotary vane pumps) are the primary pumps on most vacuum systems used in the heat treatment industry. They are also referred to as a "backing" pump when used in combination with a booster pump,[...]

Selecting the correct vacuum gauge or gauges is critical to the success of a heat treatment process. It is important to know how they work and what options are available so that the correct choice can be made. There are[...]

Dry pumps are becoming increasingly popular as an alternative to oil sealed rotary vane pumps for many medium and high vacuum applications (e.g., in low-pressure vacuum carburizing where fine granular soot is carried from the process into the pump). Designers[...]

The Edwards “RV” (simply meaning Rotary Vane) laboratory sized oil sealed rotary vane vacuum pumps (Fig. 1) have been in the market for 25 years. They have a very unique design with no equal. This article will attempt to show[...]

Vee belt drive design This article discusses one and two-stage “medium vacuum” oil sealed rotary vane vacuum pumps that can produce a catalog ultimate vacuum of about 1 x 10-2 Torr (0.01 Torr or 10 microns) for a one stage model[...]

Abstract Meteorites have fascinated mankind for centuries. Indeed, more than two dozen meteorites have been venerated by Indian tribes, aborigines, Arabs and other ancient peoples. The study of meteorites is part of the overall study of the origin of our solar[...]

Introduction The microstructure of iron-based alloys is very complicated, being influenced by composition, homogeneity, processing and section size. Microstructures in coarse-grained steels are much easier to observe than in fine-grained steels. Of course, steels are normally made with a fine grain[...]

Failures in metallic components may be caused by any of the following factors or combinations of factors: Design shortcomings Imperfections due to faulty processing or fabrication Overloading and other service abuses Improper maintenance and repair Environmental factors Not all failures are[...]

Abstract Tool Steel Failure Examples and Metallographic Imagery below. Steels used for tools and dies differ from most other steels in several aspects. First, they are used in the manufacture of other products by a variety of forming processes. Second, tools and[...]

Abstract Medical technology has developed many new devices that can be implanted into humans (in-vivo) to repair, assist or take the place of diseased or defective bones, arteries and even organs. The materials used for these devices have evolved steadily over[...]