Things to Know About Vacuum Chambers and Furnaces

Chambers and furnaces are essential parts of vacuums but play different roles. Because of this, understanding how both work and how they benefit your business can be helpful.

What Is a Vacuum Furnace?

A vacuum furnace can heat metals to extraordinarily high temperatures with minimal contamination problems precisely because the heating takes place in a vacuum. That lack of oxygen makes heating metal almost easy.

What Is a Vacuum Chamber?

Vacuum chambers come in various configurations and have several components and features. They are mainly used in a wide range of product testing applications. A specific environmental or atmospheric condition is created and maintained in the vessel and the product is analyzed in a stressful condition. The vacuum chamber industry is big and growing even more. The market size is predicted to surpass $700 million in 2024.

At times, these vessels are used along with several different types of accessories. This allows them to be utilized for testing various products by simulating different environmental and atmospheric conditions. While constructing custom vacuum chambers, certain design considerations need to be considered for proper chamber function.

The Differences Between Furnaces and Chambers

Let’s look at some of the main differences between vacuum furnaces and chambers.

How Does a Vacuum Furnace Work?

Furnaces prevent oxygen from entering vacuum chambers, thus removing the air from the heating chamber. By limiting oxygen from entering the vacuum chamber, furnaces ensure that metal vacuum parts don’t oxidize when their temperature changes.

Furnaces work with the following steps:

1. Creating a vacuum: Furnaces use vacuum pumps to remove air and gas from the chamber.
2. Heating materials: Materials inside the chamber are heated. With common metal melting points starting around 600 degrees Fahrenheit, furnaces must get incredibly hot to perform certain processes.
3. Controlling temperature: Furnaces contain temperature controls that allow operators to create the ideal environment for their chosen process.
4. Processing materials: Vacuums with furnaces can heat or melt metals without the interference of oxygen or other gases.
5. Cooling: Once the process is complete, the furnace slowly lowers the temperature until operators can remove the materials from the chamber.

Exposure to oxygen causes oxidation, which breaks down the electrons in metals and weakens their bonds; furnaces are essential for ensuring that vacuum processes yield pure products free from contaminants caused by oxidation

How Does a Vacuum Chamber Work?

Vacuum chambers create low-pressure environments where no factors could influence the process. Furnaces remove the air and pressure in a chamber, creating a clean, scientific setting that allows for accurate results.

Let’s look at how these chambers work:

1. Create a sealed environment: Vacuum chambers consist of durable materials — often metal — to protect them from outside pressure.
2. Remove air: The pump and furnace remove air and lower the pressure.
3. Monitor pressure: Operators can use gauges to monitor the vacuum pressure.
4. Perform processes: When the chamber reaches the desired pressure, operators can perform processes like experiments or manufacturing.

Since external factors are removed, vacuum chambers allow for more control over processes.

Vacuum Chamber Applications

Here are some key application areas of these chambers:

• Vacuum encapsulation
• Space simulation
• Defense research
• Vacuum drying
• Vacuum sealing
• Atmospheric simulation
• Product testing

Vacuum Furnace Benefits

The benefits of a vacuum furnace include:

• High levels of temperature control
• Less contamination from oxygen and other gases
• Rapid product cooling
• Repeatable results

Vacuum Chamber Benefits

One of the most significant benefits of using a vacuum chamber is the great level of control it offers you over various environmental factors, such as:

• Humidity
• Temperature
• Pressure
• Radiation

This added level of control makes it easier to obtain the desired results. Other benefits include:

• Reduced contamination: Since many gases are removed from a chamber during processes, the chance of oxidation or other contamination is lower.
• Improved outcomes: Vacuum chambers help improve material properties by reducing defects and enhancing conductivity.
• Increased equipment life span: Avoiding oxidation benefits more than the metals in chambers — it also helps your equipment last longer.

Contact BEPeterson for Your Vacuum Needs

All the information given above will help in constructing a good quality custom vacuum chamber for your industrial requirements. However, it is always a good thought to take help from the experts, who have extensive experience in manufacturing vacuum vessels.

BEPeterson is one such expert whom you can trust for manufacturing highly efficient vacuum chambers. BEPeterson is an ISO 9001:2015 certified company and has manufactured vacuum chambers and furnaces for many applications. For more information, call us at 508-501-0660 or request a quote. Let BEPeterson help make your next project worry free and buy with confidence.