Mon, 27 April, 2020
A new heat treatment facility has been installed at TWI’s headquarters in Cambridge to provide support for both internal projects and work for our Members.
The new facility was created and will be run in accordance to our ISO 9001 certification as well as in accordance to the requirements set out in AMS 2750 Rev E.
The heat treatment facility includes a large commercial VFE vacuum furnace with a working thermal uniformity surveyed (TUS) area of 750mm H x 750mm W x 1000mm and a working surveyed temperature range of 250°C to 1200°C.
While the furnace usually runs with vacuum levels of <1 x 10-4 mbar, it can also be used in a partial pressure mode with gases such as nitrogen, argon or 5% hydrogen in nitrogen. To support the vacuum furnace, TWI also have an air furnace with a TUS working area of 500mm H x 500mm W x 550mm D and a working surveyed temperature of 150°C to 700°C.
This new facility provides several opportunities for our Members, including:
- Business continuity when your equipment is not available
- Research and development work
- Process reviews and troubleshooting
- Pre-production work
- Small batch work
The facility is already being used for core research programme work investigating the heat treatment of additively manufactured materials and another project investigating vacuum brazing of ceramic to metals. The heat treatment facility is also being used to conduct work for a PhD on the effect of hydrogen partial pressure on brazing and an EPSRC project investigating the use of high entropy alloys for brazing.
This latest facility builds on our existing characterisation and testing facilities, covering work such as:
- Tensile testing
- Charpy testing
- Hardness testing
- Micro hardness testing