A special
range of furnaces is offered for 2100 °C in air. This temperature
in air atmosphere is achieved with zirconia heating elements.
These elements are capable of achieving element surface
temperatures of 2200 °C in air. At room temperature zirconia
elements do not conduct electricity. They must thus be preheated
by secondary heating elements, which are an integral part
of the furnace design. At elevated temperatures zirconia
elements become practical electric conductors.
Typical
areas for such furnaces are advanced research applications,
high temperature reaction studies, sintering of advanced
ceramics, melting and pouring of special glasses etc.
A specially
designed power control allows accurate heating up and cooling
down. Handling characteristics are operator friendly. Each
zirconia element is controlled separately and the overall
control is supervised by a microprocessor based programmable
controller such as Eurotherm 2704. Elements are connected
in such a way that failure of one will not cause a breakdown
of the total power. Instead failure of one element leads
to an automatic adjustment in the current to the remaining
heating elements. The bottom loading furnace has sight ports
located at front and back.
These
furnaces ore offered as box, lift or tube furnaces, whereby
the lift furnaces with four sided heating are generally
preferred.