Bending of Pipes During Heat Treatment

I have a horizontal furnace. But then supporting it by a continuous profile would restrict the free flow of hot air inside the furnace and the lower portion of the pipes may not get uniformly heated due to contact with the continuous profile.

But i can definitely try the longer cycle-lower temperature suggestion.

Thanks for the same.

could the the solid support be replaced by either a mesh or by rods spaced at regular spacing thus supporting the pipes at more places?

I mean a "mechanical continuous support" but not one which isolates part of tube since if you do so you generate a transverse temperature gradient source of deformation.

I did not mention in the first message but the way you put the tubes in the oven can also have a big influence due to nonuniform heating.

Would it be possible to have some pictures of the bend tubes and how you stack tubes and support them in the oven? It will help to better "personalize" the suggestions.

At the risk of restating the obvious, your rods are plastic at heat treating temperature and deform under their own weight.You need to heat treat at a lower temperature for a longer time, find a better way to support the rods, or some combination of these. You could also rotate the rods while they are hot.

Just something I saw years ago in a factory where they made nodular iron pipes: the heat treatment afterwards was done with rolling pipes, they never stopped rolling while in the oven.

This was to prevent deformation.

@welderman: rotating the pipes while hot wouldn't be possible as ours is a closed furnace..

will have to try a combination of longer cycle and more number of supports (or even a mesh as suggested by peterg7lyq)

@nick name: shall try posting some pics..

Sahil, It is possible that rotating your pipes in the closed furnace is not worth the expense involved, but I doubt it's impossible. The tasks one can accomplish in closed containers is mind boggling. What would your reaction have been if someone asked you to design a space station??