TWI have installed a new heat treatment facility at our headquarters in Cambridge to support both our internal projects and to support our members. The facility has been set up and will be run in accordance with our ISO 9001 certification and also in line with the requirements laid out in AMS 2750 Rev E.
The new heat treatment service facility has 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. The furnace typically runs with vacuum levels are <1 x 10-4 mbar but can also be used in a partial pressure mode using 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.
TWI can offer this service to members for:
- Business continuity when your equipment is not available
- Research and development work
- Process reviews and troubleshooting
- Pre-production work
- Small batch work
Examples of current project work being supported by the facilities include a CRP project investigating the heat treatment of AM materials as well as another CRP project investigating vacuum brazing of ceramic to metals, a PhD investigating the effect of hydrogen partial pressure on brazing and an EPSRC project investigating the use of high entropy alloys for brazing.
The heat treatment facilities are supported by TWIs extensive range of state of the art characterisation and testing facilities such as:
- Tensile testing
- Charpy testing
- Hardness testing
- Micro hardness testing