Feasible Optimal Design of High Temperature Vacuum Furnace Using Experiences and Thermal Analysis Database

Abstract

A new method using thermal analysis database and optimization technique has been developed to substitute the original method what was based on trial and error. First, an original vacuum furnace was manufactured according to experiences. Modified baseline vacuum furnace which can be used in high temperature was produced from the original one by using experimental data and experiences. The results in 2 different conditions of nearly vacuum and argon ambient gas were investigated in order to define the worse but necessary condition between them. By comparing the analysis results with experimental results, the unknown thermal conductivity of insulator in high temperature has been found out. The calculated thermal conductivity of insulator has been applied to the process of thermal analysis database constructing under the condition of argon ambient gas which is the worse but necessary condition. In order to check the accuracy of constructed thermal analysis database, the interpolated results using constructed thermal analysis database have been compared with computational results. Finally, optimization study has been carried out to design an energy efficient, high temperature vacuum furnace which can fully satisfy user's design requirements by using the new method. Feasible optimal design has been obtained as a final product. With negligible computational cost, a high temperature vacuum furnace which has 31.9% reduction in the total heat was designed by using the new developed method.

A Method for Decreasing Preheating Time of Thermoforming

“…For improving the accuracy, different profiles were used for upper and lower surfaces. In this study, SQP(sequential quadratic programming) optimization algorithm was used [4,8,9].…”

Optimal design of high temperature vacuum furnace using response surface method

“…(2). W is the weighting factor, q original is required heat of original vacuum furnace described in a previous study and V original is volume of the insulator which can be expressed by design variables [4]. (1 ) original original…”

“…In this study, a new method based on the response surface method and optimization technique has been developed which can be used to design a high temperature vacuum furnace. At first, thermal analysis was carried out for constructing the response surface under the condition of using the calculated thermal conductivity of the insulator in a previous study [4]. In the process of constructing the response surface, the D-optimal method was used to select experimental points.…”

Performance Prediction of Large Scale Vacuum Furnace Using Thermal Analysis

“…The user's requirement was set that the large scale vacuum furnace is operated at 1650 under the condtion of having argon ambient gas. Heat transfer in a large scale vacuum furnace mainly includes conduction heat transfer and radiation heat transfer, and natural convection must be considered when ambient gas is used in heat treatment [5][6][7][8]. In order to carry out thermal analysis of the large scale vacuum furnace, CFD-ACE [9] analysis code which based on finite volume method was used.…”

“…In order to carry out the thermal analysis of the large scale vacuum furnace, the thermal conductivity of the insulator must be known. In this study, the thermal conductivity of the insulator was interpolated using the data shown in Table 1, and the heater in a previous study was used [5]. Fig.…”