Heat treaters are forever curious about how their furnaces are performing; in particular the uniformity of properties that will be achieved throughout the load. We often look to sophisticated tools for answers, but there is a simple, yet highly effective, method for quantifying our furnace’s performance – the Navy C-ring test. Let’s learn more.

Originally designed to study dimensional changes that occur in the heat treatment of hardened and/or case-hardened components, the power of the Navy C-ring test is that it can be adapted and used while running production loads to determine both the overall performance capability (i.e., condition) of the furnace and the heat-treatment process being conducted in it. It can also be used to compare in-house heat treatment with that of outside commercial services.