Die-Bond LLC features HAL, the world’s first 100-ton vacuum hot press diffusion bonding furnace with gas fan quench cooling capability for up to 4,000 pound parts.
Standing for Highly Automated Laminator HAL is the latest in new furnace technology developed by Refrac Systems in Chandler, AZ for manufacturing complex 2-D layered structures. It was specifically designed for bonding plastic injection molding dies that contain conformal cooling passages, and then performing the “full hardening” heat treat quench operation during the same furnace run cycle.
HAL is a 2-Bar Internally Quench (IQ) cooled vacuum furnace at its core, which means the water-cooled heat exchanger removing heat from the recirculating quench gas is contained within the basic vacuum vessel as shown in Figure Four below. The 2-Bar IQ cooling system minimizes the waste of expensive quench gasses such as Helium, or Argon+Helium mixtures. HAL uses a 150 HP motor driving the high-speed fan needed to recirculate the quench cooling gas while running at up to 2 atmospheres normal backfill pressure.
HAL has a Bluetooth device that allows users to interact with it similar to the HAL-9000 in the classic film “2001: A Space Odyssey.”
