Oxidation high temperature protection using

Protective-Atmosphere Furnaces. These furnaces are used where the work caimot tolerate oxidation or where the atmosphere must provide a chemical or metallurgical reaction with the work. In some cases, mainly in high temperature appHcations, the atmosphere is required to protect the electric heating element from oxidation. 

The contact ends of printed circuit boards are copper. Alloys of nickel and iron are used as substrates in hermetic connectors in which glass (qv) is the dielectric material. Terminals are fabricated from brass or copper from nickel, for high temperature appHcations from aluminum, when aluminum conductors are used and from steel when high strength is required. Because steel has poor corrosion resistance, it is always plated using a protective metal, such as tin (see Tin and tin alloys). Other substrates can be unplated when high contact normal forces, usually more than 5 N, are available to mechanically dismpt insulating oxide films on the surfaces and thereby assure metaUic contact (see Corrosion and corrosion control). 

Over the years, Pourbaix and his co-workers in the CEBELCOR Institute, founded under his direction, extended these diagrams by including lines for metastable compounds. Figure 7.66 illustrates such a presentation for the Fe-O system over the temperature range 830-2200 K. Pourbaix used these diagrams as a basis for a discussion of the stability of metallic iron (solid, liquid and vapour phases), the oxides of iron as a function of oxygen pressure and temperature from which he explained the protection of iron at high temperature by immunity and passivation. He also pointed out the... 

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