COMPUTER MODELING OF PRESSURE GAS QUENCHING IN VACUUM FURNACES

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.