Wisconsin Oven Completes Spray Quench Aluminum Solution Furnace for a Premier Supplier to the Defense Industry
Wisconsin Oven is pleased to announce the completion of a Horizontal Spray Quench Furnace for C/A Design located in Dover, NH. This furnace will be used for the solution treatment of aluminum. The system is designed to soak the product load at temperature in the furnace and then a pusher mechanism rapidly moves the load into the spray quench. The spray quench offers reduced distortion in comparison to submersion quenching.
The maximum temperature for this system is 1,150°F and it has sufficient capacity to heat a 200 pound aluminum load plus the work grid and product fixture. A temperature uniformity survey was documented for +/-10°F at 985°F to verify the furnace has the capability to meet AMS 2750G, Class 2 furnace and Instrumentation Type D requirements.
The spray quench is located in front of the oven and has vertical-lift, pneumatically operated doors on each end. The spray quench system utilizes fifty (50) fine mist nozzles located above, below, and on each side of the quench chamber to rapidly cool the product from all sides. Each nozzle is independently selectable from the touchscreen HMI and a variable frequency drive allows the pump speed to be adjusted to maintain a constant pressure to each spray nozzle. Click on this link to watch a video of this system in operation.
“This aluminum solution treatment furnace utilizes a unique spray system for quenching of the load. The spray system is programmed to allow the nozzles to be independently selectable and is capable of turning off up to 75% of the nozzles giving the operator the flexibility to control the quenching of various size loads.
“Wisconsin Oven worked extensively with C/A Design’s team to provide a custom solution to meet their requirements including several automated features built into the system” – Doug Christiansen, Senior Application Engineer
Unique features of this horizontal spray quench system include:
- Maximum quench delay of 15 seconds
- Spray quench system with fifty (50) nozzles (each is manually selectable or programmable within a heating/quenching recipe)
- Spray nozzles are individually isolated for ease of maintenance and replacement
- Powered pusher/extractor for charging the load into the furnace (capable of manual or automatic operation)
- Chiller system to remove heat from the spray quench water tank (exterior roof mounted to save valuable floor space)
- 7 Day programmable automatic start up (to allow the furnace to be preheated before the start of the each shift)
- Scissor lift elevator with manual foot pedal or automated lift/lower capabilities
- 10,000 CFM @ 10 HP plug-mounted recirculation blower with combination air flow
- 15” HMI color touch screen for furnace/spray quench/pusher operator interface control
- Eurotherm Nanodac controller/recorder for furnace temperature and spray pressure control
- Feature to disable the quench chamber sprayers with capability to place the load directly onto the scissor lift to utilize the customers air quenching capabilities
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