The System from Nabertherm GmbH consists of a sintering furnace, a separate cooling water system with heat exchanger and a process-gas feed. Because of the professional plc process control H3700 from HiProSystems, the user is capable to adjust an amount of parameters to get optimal conditions for the process. Input and visualization of setpoints and actual values is done via a HMI touch-panel. A single sintering process can be segmented in up to 20 parts with individual parameters. Furthermore the acquisition of the sintering curve can be displayed immediately.

The sintering furnace can reach a maximum temperature of 1600°C with a heating power of 31kW. The furnace chamber is made of stainless steel. The heater is made of lanthan-doped molybdenum moldings and the inner process box is made of molybdenum plates. To protect the furnace chamber and the heater from released binder ingredients while debindering it is possible to operate the chamber with slight overpressure compared to the inner process box. Furthermore the inner process box (120x210x150 mm; wxdxh) makes optimized temperature uniformity possible. As process gas nitrogen, argon and forming gases can be used by flow rates of 50 l/h and 500 l/h.

The system is funded by Europäischen Fonds für regionale Entwicklung (funding period 2014-2020)

Contact: Tim Dreier M.Sc.