Contiblu®3 - for SMC.
With powder metallurgy (PM) parts makers looking for new opportunities for PM e-mobility applications, Contiblu® offers heat treatment /sintering of soft magnetic components SMC as well as even gas-tight surface treatment of PM parts. Precise atmosphere control and specific temperature profile achieves required magnetic charateristics and incredible small tolerances.
'Contiblu' process is a multi functional gas heating system which couples protective gas generation, afterburning of flue gases and furnace heating. In so doing, it enables Contiblu furnaces to be constructed that eliminate the need for a boiler, as well as for cooling traps, nitrogen purgers, afterburning chambers and uneconomic heaters that are often used in other continuous steam treatment systems.
"A continuous steam furnace should be more than just a 'conventional' furnace with a conveyor belt, Sarnes says. "In order to really exploit the enormous cost benefit of continuous steaming, the exhaust gas problems, the generation of the inert gas atmosphere, the heating of the furnace and, above all, a simple and low-cost furnace design should be combined.
In the Contiblu design, unburned hydrocarbons (oil and emulsion residues) are afterburned in the furnace with the resulting heat being used for furnace heating. A further benefit, according to Sarnes, is that the exhaust gases do not need to be scrubbed.
These design features means that Contiblu furnaces are a low cost option, while fully meeting the performance requirements of a steam treating system. Sintered parts soaked in oil or calibration emulsions can be blued just as easily and with to just as high a quality as bright parts, while the achievable hardness is very easily controlled by means of the conveyor speed.