Many of our customers are inquiring about the benefit of using CFC Materials in their Vacuum Furnace and other Heat Treat applications. While there are many benefits, from increased furnace capacity to quicker turnaround time, there are 5 main benefits that deserve attention:

1. CFC Materials provide High Strength while Light Weight
Thanks to their special fiber structure, CFC is very low weight and robust, especially when it comes to the behavior of fracture and mechanical resistance. Racks and workpieces made of CFC are 8 to 10 times lighter than classical racks. Consequently, they facilitate processes and working cycles and even contribute to the prevention of accidents. With high strength and low weight, CFC jig assemblies are used for vacuum heat treatment and brazing of turbine blades, oil coolers, stainless steel brazing and sintering.

2. Increased Furnace Productivity
CFC is optimally suitable for use in most vacuum furnaces. With the customary temperatures in vacuum furnaces, CFC does not react with process gases such as nitrogen and argon, which decreases cooling time. CFC offers increased productivity and energy savings due to a low thermal mass. Modular systems enable custom-built charging elements quickly and economically for nearly every task. These advantages play a key role since they enable expansion of production with unchanged facility size.

3. Long Service Life
CFC simply pays off. It provides obvious and calculable advantages even at a higher initial price. They enable shorter cycle times with significantly longer service life, are up to ten times lighter than steel racks and do not distort at all. Their high thermal shock resistance ensures a long service life and thus plannable processes and cycles. This makes handling easier and reduces the amount of work involved because it eliminates the straightening work on distorted racks and ensures continuous production.

4. Energy Efficiency
Although its heat absorbing capacity is 2.5 times higher than that of metal, CFC provides a significantly better energy balance than all comparable materials because of its extremely low density. For high-temperature applications this means reduced heating and cooling times as well as less energy demand.

5. Distortion Resistance
Due to its molecular structure, which has almost no tendency to move even at the highest temperatures, CFC is extremely distortion-resistant. It maintains its’ shape which is unchanged even after thousands of uses. It reaches its’ highest stability at temperatures of about 1800° C. Its’ expansion on 1 meter tends to zero at 1000° C. A comparable metal rack expands by about 1.1 cm (approx. 1/2″). The very low expansion coefficient is one of the most important advantages of CFC and graphite.

It is becoming clear that CFC Materials are great alternatives to traditional materials for use in high temperature heat treat applications. From cost savings to increased overall efficiency, the materials offer an attractive alternative.