Vacuum furnace for additively manufactured parts offered by Centorr

The Series 3540 Workhorse AM vacuum furnace is Centorr Vacuum Industries’ production-volume unit. It’s designed for the secondary heat-treating, annealing, stress‐relieving, degassing, and quench-cooling of 3D-printed metal workpieces.

According to the 68-year-old, Nashua, N.H., furnace manufacturer, metal AM processes like DLS (direct laser sintering) and SLM (selective laser melting) involve localized, high‐temperature melting of small spots within a part. The result is microstresses can build up in parts that must be eliminated to attain desired workpiece properties such as high fatigue strength, hardness, durability, and ductility. Annealing and stress‐relieving in a vacuum or controlled atmosphere of inert gas reduces these stresses.

Centorr also notes that an ultraclean vacuum environment ensures no oxidation or decarburization occurs, resulting in part surfaces that are shiny compared to parts heat-treated in atmosphere box furnaces.