Solar Manufacturing will install a large car-bottom-type vacuum furnace at a major aviation facility in Shenyang, China.

Solar Manufacturing will install a large Model HCB-120180-2IQ car-bottom-type vacuum furnace at a major aviation facility in Shenyang, China. This new, purpose-built furnace will be used for the annealing and degassing of titanium alloys as well as for processing other steel alloy parts for aircraft applications. The furnace has a 120-inch-diameter heating element to accommodate a work zone that measures 99 inches wide x 48 inches high x 180 inches deep, and it has a hearth designed to accommodate up to a 15,000-pound workload. The furnace is expected to be in full operation by mid-summer 2012.

The system is a single-chamber, internal gas quench, batch-type design featuring an all-metal hot zone and dual 35-inch diffusion pump systems for high-vacuum (10^-5 torr range) performance. The internal-quench design incorporates a 200-HP motor/heat exchanger system for rapid gas cooling at 2-bar pressure. Supervision of the installation and commissioning of the furnace will be a cooperative effort between Solar Manufacturing and its Chinese representative, Beijing Waves Corp.