Furnace Control Data Needs

The ideal way to get information on rate of heating and temperature uniformity (for avoiding undue stresses and for quality assurance) is to bury T-sensors within the piece(s) being heated. This may damage the piece therefore, an expendable sample may be necessary, which hopefully can be placed where it receives exactly the same heat treatment as the real loads. 

TABLE 6.4 Some typical turndown ranges (for listed pressures only). 

Linked valves Poor tracking unless with special linkage valves 4 1 

Pressure balanced Cold air only/with 16 osi cold air 5 1 

Electronic flow balanced Accommodates O2 trim, mass flow control, oxy-fuel firing 7 1 

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The sample can be immediately inserted into the DSC furnace, which is previously equilibrated at the desired curing temperature, or the sample can be placed into the DSC furnace at room temperature and then heated to the required temperature at a rapid but controlled rate. With both methods, however, some heat of reaction might remain unrecorded in the initial equilibration period and an extrapolation to zero time is needed for accurate kinetic data. 

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