Solar Atmospheres of Western Pennsylvania, Hermitage, is currently installing a new rapid quenching vacuum furnace that will ultimately eliminate the need for costly helium while increasing production throughput.
Solar Manufacturing’s ten-bar vacuum furnace, with a revolutionary cooling design, will mimic an older two-bar Solar furnace in size. However, this new ten-bar furnace is 48 x 48 x 96 inches in size, and is equipped with a proven 600 HP blower designed motor. It will outperform its older model by processing larger and heavier workloads with the use of nitrogen only.
“To marginally harden one 2000-pound high-speed tool steel roll die in our older two-bar vacuum furnace, the use of light helium gas was a necessity,” says President Bob Hill. “The prohibitive cost of a two-atmosphere helium backfill was $1065. Our new furnace will enable us to fully harden three 2000-pound roll dies at once using the more cost-effective process gas of nitrogen. In contrast, the cost of a atmosphere backfill of nitrogen will be only $89.” Mr. Hill predicts that with these increased efficiencies and savings, his normal ROI on a new piece of equipment will be significantly advanced.
Once the furnace is operational, Mr. Hill will author a technical paper with the actual cooling data derived from these similarly sized vacuum furnaces.
