What are the advantages of tempering electric furnace under vacuum?

The vacuum tempering electric furnace (vacuum tempering furnace) combines vacuum technology and tempering process, demonstrating significant advantages in the field of material heat treatment. Its advantages can be summarized as follows:

1. Ultimate surface protection and material purity
No oxidation, no decarburization:
The vacuum environment (with a vacuum degree of up to 10 ⁻ ³ Pa or less) isolates oxygen, completely avoiding surface oxidation and decarburization of materials. This is crucial for high-precision parts such as medical device implants and aviation bearings, ensuring surface smoothness and reducing subsequent processing costs (such as polishing and pickling).
Non polluting treatment:
No need for salt bath or protective gas, avoiding impurities (such as chloride ions and sulfur elements) that may be introduced in traditional heat treatment, especially suitable for medical implants and food grade parts that require extremely high purity.

2. Excellent heat treatment quality
Uniformity control:
The vacuum tempering furnace achieves temperature uniformity (within ± 5 ℃) inside the furnace through forced gas circulation or radiation heating technology, ensuring uniform material structure and reducing stress concentration and deformation caused by temperature gradients.
Accurate temperature control and process stability:
Equipped with a high-precision temperature control system (such as PID control), the tempering temperature and time can be accurately set to avoid over burning or under burning, especially suitable for performance sensitive materials such as martensitic stainless steel and high-speed steel.
Stress relief and performance optimization:
Effectively eliminate quenching stress, prevent cracking, and optimize the mechanical properties such as hardness, toughness, and elasticity of materials by adjusting tempering temperature and time to meet the needs of different application scenarios.

3. Energy saving and environmental advantages
Efficient heat utilization:
The vacuum environment reduces heat loss, and when combined with insulation materials such as ceramic fibers and molybdenum screens, energy consumption is reduced by 20% -30% compared to traditional furnace types.
Low carbon emissions:
No need to use protective gases (such as nitrogen, argon) or salt baths, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and waste liquid treatment costs, in line with the trend of green manufacturing.
Long lifespan and low maintenance:
The vacuum environment reduces the corrosion and wear of furnace components, prolongs the service life of equipment, and reduces maintenance frequency and costs.

4. Process flexibility and adaptability
Multi material compatibility:
It can handle a variety of materials, including steel, aluminum alloys, titanium alloys, nickel based alloys, ceramics, etc., to meet the diverse needs of different industries.
Special process support:
Bright tempering: By filling high-purity inert gas (such as 99.999% nitrogen), the surface of the parts is bright and corrosion-resistant, suitable for decorative parts or high requirement surface treatment.
Low temperature annealing and aging treatment: precise control of low-temperature tempering process, stable microstructure, suitable for final processing of precision parts.
Vacuum carburizing and nitriding: Combining vacuum technology to achieve deep carburizing or nitriding, improving surface hardness and wear resistance.

5. Safety and reliability
Multiple security protections:
Equipped with sound and light alarms and interlocking functions for overpressure, overtemperature, water shortage, etc., to prevent safety accidents caused by equipment failure or operational errors.
Stable vacuum system:
Using a combination of molecular pump and mechanical pump, the pumping speed is fast and the ultimate vacuum degree is high, ensuring stable vacuum degree during the processing and avoiding oxidation or pollution caused by vacuum leakage.

6. Advantages Reflected in Typical Application Scenarios
Medical industry:
When handling titanium alloy implants (such as hip joints and spinal fixators), vacuum tempering can avoid the detachment of biocompatible coatings, ensure non-toxic and harmless surfaces, and improve fatigue life.
Automotive industry:
When dealing with gearbox gears, the deformation is controlled within 0.05mm through high-pressure gas quenching and vacuum tempering, reducing subsequent grinding and improving production efficiency.
Aerospace:
When processing nickel based high-temperature alloy blades, a vacuum environment can prevent the formation of oxide scale, combined with the “solid solution+aging” process, to improve high-temperature strength and creep resistance.

7. Long term economic benefits
Reduce overall costs:
Although the initial investment of vacuum tempering furnace is relatively high, in the long run, it can significantly reduce the processing cost of unit parts by reducing the scrap rate, shortening the process cycle, lowering energy consumption and maintenance costs.
Enhance product added value:
High quality heat treatment can improve product performance and reliability, enhance market competitiveness, and is particularly suitable for high-end manufacturing fields.