Pressure gas quench vacuum furnaces, designed for general heat treatin
g applications, come with a wide variety of quench-system features, ma
ny of which have a significant bearing on equipment and operating cost
s. In order to determine which of these features is cost-effective, th
e end-user needs to understand the influence of each on cooling perfor
mance. A computer model of a pressure gas quench furnace, developed us
ing computational fluid dynamics, has been used to study the effect of
the major variables and facilitate design optimisation.