I Need Help with a 1600 Deg C HIP Furnace Design

If cost is not your biggest concern-I would rig up Many Plasma Arc Torches on to and around a graphite Tubular shape and Inside a superRefractory Tubular shield(outermost).

Plasmas will run at ~2000ºC, Graphite Tube walls at 1950~-- and Job inside will nicely heat up fast to 1600.

Outside the SuperRefractory-2 layers of water cooling tubes. Or just radiate out like mad!

Sorry--no First hand Experience.

Should work very well.

Hi MUKULMAHANT

Thank you for your thoughtful reply. The problem with the plasma solution is twofold; First, the HIP system operates in a 15,000 PSI Argon atmosphere and secondly, the amount of annular space inside the vessel dedicated to a heater is on the order of 1.5" (37 mm).

I am going to use much of your suggestion to build an atmospheric "bake-out" fixture that will be used to burn off the binders in the thermal shroud assembly for HIP furnaces prior to production cycles. It should work brilliantly.

Thanks again,

Chesley

Chesley,

I worked with a HIP press at 2000 bar and 2000ºC heated using carbon elements. The downside was that the elements tend to break very often and the carbon screws used also tend to fail too often for my liking. Since you are designing this thing yourself (and I'm not completely sure why you doing it) you might be able to design it in a way that this does not happen.

I was also working on a Hot-press that was cooking SiN at 1800 and this was also powered with carbon elements.

The one thing you need to avoid is sudden changes in cross-section for your elements for they'll start eroding very quickly there and eventually fail.

I cannot remember the suppliers for these two machines but if you want, I can try and ask somebody that still works there.

Good luck!

Hi ciplionej

I too have experienced the same problem with graphite threaded fasteners. I try to stay away from threads in HIP furnaces when possible. I will say that though I have seen plenty of breakage with the older style, machined graphite elements, they stood up to repair with a graphite slurry very well -- much easier than repair of Moly elements.

One of the primary reasons for posting the question seeking a supplier of CFC material that has good uniformity is the reason you state in your reply; and inconsistency or deviance in cross section results in quick failure of the element.

Hmmmmm...30,000 PSI, 2000 deg C HIP. I wonder if I designed it. If you can find out the make and model I would be interested in knowing. I have been a HIP designer for 30 years (ouch) and have designed furnaces and associated systems for nearly all of the major players as well as a couple of minor ones.

Your handle here is ciplionej. Does the cip stand for Cold Isostatic Press? Just curious.

Many thanks for your thoughtful reply.

I'm not too sure why but after changing "carbon" for "molybdenum" in the HIP elements, I still got carbon in the post. The carbon was only used in the hot press and that one you are likely to have built and designed yourself since it was an american masterpiece. It was a hot-press built by thermal technologies in the US and refurbished by FCT in germany. The machine itself was (or still is) in switzerland though.

The HIP, I still cannot remember the name of the company that built that one.

I'll get hold of the suppliers for the carbon elements next week and post them here for you. On the other hand we used to use the same supplier for the graphite dies and the graphite foam isolation. The used to make some nice dies with carbon fiber wraps around them for a larger hot-press that was off-site.

Nevertheless this supplier is in Europe (germany) and I'm not sure how useful that is for you.

The cip-lionej, I had never noticed it, thanks for pointing that one out :o) Written using the right alphabet ciplionej means chicken. One of those long stories.

I'll keep you updated.

All the best,

Fernando

Hi,

I would like to like to know more about the HIP furnace container design as I was wondering how to achieve this high pressure. The stresses in the furnace shell would be rather high..

Can you plz. provide some info on the design or direct to links that give the design aspects...

Thank you

Harry

Hi

this supplier of any type of synthetic carbon and graphite is SGL in Wiesbaden, Germany

http://www.sglcarbon.de/products/markets_d.html

Rhabe