WATER QUENCH FURNACES
Internal Quench Furnace: Front View
Straight Through Atmosphere Type Sealed Water Quench Pusher Furnaces are suitable for bright annealing precious metals and precious metal alloys as well as the hardening of some ferrous metal components which require rapid cooling through a liquid quench.
The furnace consists of a Load Table, Purge Chamber, Furnace Box and Vestibule / Quench Tank. The Purge chamber, Furnace Box and Quench Vestibule are flanged and sealed together gas-tight to provide high integrity atmosphere containment.
The customer’s loaded basket is transferred from the Front table to purge chamber through the opened inclined sloping / sliding steel door. The basket will remain stationary in the purge chamber for several minutes to allow gaseous oxidizing constituents to be exhausted by counterflow of the hot dry atmosphere gas. The basket is then transferred to target position in the heating chamber and will remain stationary for a time segment sufficient to enable recovery as well as a predetermined soak.
Internal Quench Furnace: Side View
At the conclusion of the heating profile the basket will be transferred into the stainless steel quench vestibule onto the internal stainless steel elevator platform. The platform will be lowered into the stainless water quench tank immediately, fully immersing the hot loaded basket. The basket will pass from the protective atmosphere in the quench vestibule to the liquid media without exposure to oxidizing gas constituents.
Water Quench Tank & Vestibule
The elevator will consist of an internal quench platform and an atmospheric quench platform mounted on a common structural assembly which will rise and lower coincidently. In the up position the internal platform will be located within the quench vestibule and the atmospheric platform will be accessible in open air above the liquid level. In the immersed position the load can be driven from the internal platform to the atmospheric platform by a side basket pusher. When this has been completed the elevator can rise to expose the loaded quenched basket to open air where it is accessible and can be unloaded.
Straight through pusher operation will enable a new basket to be loaded into the heating chamber while the old one is quenching.
Drop Bottom Quench Furnace Assembly
Drop Bottom periodic furnaces are utilized for solution heat treating aluminum alloys at temperatures of 900 – 1100°F as well as low temperature aging at temperatures of 300 – 500°F. The elevated furnace bottom door will open allowing the charge loaded basket to be lifted into the furnace. The furnace is provided with forced recirculation and proportioning controls to achieve temperature uniformity of +10°F or better within the heating chamber to produce a solid solution but also avoid exceeding the initial eutectic melting temperature which would degrade the physical properties of the material. At the conclusion of solution treatment the charge must be water quenched, (cooled rapidly), to produce a supersaturated solution and avoid precipitation detrimental to mechanical properties. This is achieved by transferring the roll-away water quench tank to a position directly under the bottom furnace door to enable rapid basket transfer into the quench.