High Temperature Vacuum Furnace

Supply, installation and commissioning of a medium scale (50L to 100L capacity) furnace system to support production of Ceramics, Carbon/Carbon (C/C) and Ceramic Matrix Composite (CMC) (e.g. C-SiC/C-SiOC etc.) materials. The furnace system will be capable of undertaking a number of different manufacturing processes, including: pyrolysis, sintering, graphitisation, and siliconization (e.g liquid silicon infiltration or reactive melt infiltration).

The furnace system is to be supplied, installed and commissioned including all necessary safety devices and ancillary hardware (e.g. supply and outlet gas management, cooling systems etc), and must comply as per applicable Australian Standards and Legislative Requirements.

The furnace will meet the following general requirements:

- Graphite heating elements and insulation (or suitable alternate)

- Inner process box (retort) size between 50L and 100L

- Continuous operation at 2200 degrees Celsius (or greater)

- Controlled heating at rates up to 10K/min, with temperature uniformity of +/- 5 deg K

- Integrated, automatic process gas management system (vacuum, Nitrogen, Argon)

- Operation under a range of chamber pressure from High Vacuum, partial pressure up to slight over-pressure

- Reconfigurable furnace gas outlet management to allow for use with either a condensate trap or afterburner system

- Software to allow for programming, process monitoring, data logging and automation of operations

Options are to be provided for supply of:

- Ancillary hardware (e.g. water chiller/cooling system) required for standard operation of the furnace system.