Whole Part Heat Treating and Brazing
Within the aerospace industry, it has become much more economical to repair costly engine components than to replace them. Cost-effective repair processes such as whole part heat treating and nickel brazing can be completed in a vacuum furnace under high vacuum or partial pressure of an inert gas. IA has designed a series of compact induction heating vacuum furnaces which are ideal for aerospace component repair. The newest model in the series, the VF-30, is designed to heat parts of virtually any shape in a high temperature, high vacuum environment.
The most common aerospace applications for vacuum furnaces include heat treating small lot sizes, brazing parts of unusual shapes, repairing “orphans” from other heating processes, and other applications which benefit from whole part heating. It’s easy to set up a continuous manufacturing flow, run various processes throughout the day and realize up to 90% improvement in overall cycle time.
GE Aviation recently added the new VF-30 furnace to the company’s Lean Lab; a physical manufacturing environment used to facilitate lean enabling technology insertion. “Adding the latest version (VF-30) to the lab allows us to optimize, leverage and promote the VF-30 furnaces currently used in GE Aviation’s manufacturing shops,” said Aviation’s Jeff Wessels.
With the Model VF-30’s quick, clean induction heating system, cycle times can be dramatically reduced in comparison to traditional resistance heating methods. The chart below plots time/temperature curves for a typical nickel brazing process. The induction heating vacuum furnace completes the process in less than one hour while the same process requires more than three hours with resistance heating. With the IA vacuum furnace, 1900°F can be reached in less than eight minutes and temperatures as high as 2300° can be achieved. Cool down to 400°F from maximum temperature can be completed in less than 20 minutes.
To permit easy loading, the vacuum furnace’s part handling mechanism opens at the base of the system, then automatically raises the parts up into the vacuum chamber and heating coil, and finally lowers the parts back down to base level for unloading.
The standard hot zone of the VF-30 has an 11” ID, 12” height and is customizable according to individual process requirements. The chamber has base vacuum of 5x10(-6) Torr with a leak-up rate of less than 1 micron per hour, and is mounted on a heavy duty stainless steel frame that houses all the required equipment for vacuum, atmospheric and system control, as well as the induction heating station. VF-30 DATA SHEET