AVS, Inc. (Advanced Vacuum Systems)

AVS Vacuum Furnace is manufactured to satisfy our customer’s temperature and vacuum atmosphere requirements. AVS vacuum furnace allow various combinations of high temperatures up to 3000°C, high vacuum to 10-6torr, partial pressure gas atmospheres in the millitorr or torr ranges, and positive pressures up to 1 atmosphere (14.7 psig). AVS has in-house capabilities to fabricate graphite hot zones using soft felt or rigid g-board insulation, as well as non-particulate metal hot zones including stainless steel, nichrome, inconel, molybdenum or tungsten, when required. AVS adherence to ASME codes allows AVS the confidence to offer the only standard 5 year chamber warranty in the industry. Vacuum furnace chambers are manufactured by certified AVS welders in our facility and, depending on requirements, can be fabricated from mild steel, 304 stainless steel or 316 stainless steel. The standard leak rate on an AVS vacuum chamber is 5µhour, but through the use of electro-polishing or with specialty coatings, can be fabricated to meet tighter specifications if required. With the addition of a condenser system or hydrogen burn-off system, an AVS Vacuum Furnace can also allow for combination debinding and sintering. Debinding can be performed in positive pressures or partial pressures of flowing argon, nitrogen, hydrogen, or other inert or reactive gases or gas mixtures.

AVS leads the way in standard and custom engineered vacuumpressure furnace systems throughout the world. Our Sinter HIP furnaces, used in the debinding, sintering and densification of tungsten carbide, continue to provide our customers with long term value, saving time and handling by allowing a combination of these process steps into an integrated cycle, performed in a single furnace. AVS Sinter HIPs have been tailored to meet the specific requirements of tungsten carbide sintering furnaces, combining unique capabilities for paraffin or binder removal, pre-sintering and hot isostatic press densification into a single piece of equipment for production of tungsten carbide hard metal products. Today these AVS specialty furnaces dominate the tungsten carbide sintering furnace market. Using specialized vacuum pumping systems, binder traps and condensers, plus engineered gas delivery systems, AVS Sinter HIP furnaces provide closely controlled vacuum, partial pressure and HIP atmosphere control from vacuum to 150 bar and higher. If required, temperatures can be managed by multiple zone heating and control for superior uniformity and product quality. Six sided heating (top, bottom, left, right, front and rear) is commonly used to minimize heat gradients and maximize load capacity. To provide custom pressure furnaces throughout the world, AVS maintains code certifications to manufacture pressure vessels to ASME Section VIII Div I, PED (European Pressure Equipment Directive), Japanese code, Chinese code, Russian code, and will qualify for others if necessary. AVS adherence to ASME codes allows AVS the confidence to offer the only standard 5 year chamber warranty in the industry. Our furnaces are built for complete safety during operation to meet OSHA, UL, CSA or European CE standards, enabling AVS tungsten carbide sintering furnaces to provide years of safe, reliable operation. AVS offers standard Sinter HIP furnace sizes for tungsten carbide from 1ft³ volume to 20ft³, operating up to 1600°C at 60 bar or 100 bar of argon, with available Rapid™ Cooling systems, load transfer systems, hydrogen burn-off capabilities and gas recovery systems. The unique willingness of AVS to apply high temperature and HIP furnace innovations to build custom pressure furnaces has enabled customers to pursue novel combinations of pressures up to 150 bar and temperatures up to 2300°C. With the standard cooling package, an AVS Sinter HIP furnace with a nominal load can cool for unloading in approximately 7 to 8 hours. On the other hand, the same furnace with the same load is able to cool in less than 4 hours if equipped with an AVS Rapid™ Cool system. Rapid™ Cool is available on all new AVS Sinter HIPs, but can also be retrofitted to existing Sinter HIPs in the field.

AVS hot press furnace is used worldwide for vacuum hot pressing, diffusion bonding, thermal forging and powder densification. AVS has built hot presses ranging in size from mini 5 ton presses for R&D to production systems with working areas over 12 feet across and more than 2000 tons of hydraulic pressing force. Using graphite or refractory metal hot zones, AVS hot presses operate at temperatures up to 2400°C, and AVS welded chambers allow for high vacuum performance to 10-6 torr range. AVS is one of the few vacuum furnace hot press manufacturers with the in-house capabilities to design, engineer and fabricate press frames and vacuum chambers. Rugged boxed H-frame construction with gussets provides a rigid frame welded, reinforced and machined to reliably maintain the press faces parallel within 0.002". AVS vacuum chambers routinely have leak-up rates

AVS has built CVD furnace for the chemical vapor deposition (CVD) and chemical vapor infiltration (CVI) of a variety of materials, including silicon carbide, pyrolytic carbon, boron nitride, zinc selenide and zinc sulfide. AVS gas and vapor delivery systems coordinate mass flow controls and modulating valves to deliver reactant and carrier gases such as nitrogen, hydrogen, argon, methane, silicon tetrachloride, methyl trichlorosilane, boron trichloride, carbon dioxide, ammonia and others. Precise control of temperature, atmospheric pressure, gas flows, exhaust stream, even rotary motion, is managed by the ACE™ control system. Decades of furnace design and heat control experience are applied to obtain the proper temperature ranges and uniformities necessary for predictable gas reactions. AVS retort assemblies and advanced differential pressure control technology keep reactant gases and by-products inside the retort, protecting CVD furnace hot zones from contamination for extended service life. To support our CVD furnace, AVS supplies reactant or carrier delivery systems, including weight-monitored liquid delivery systems, vaporizers, gas metering manifold systems and control cabinets. Waste stream management systems are also available, including dust collectors, condenser systems, collectors, gas burn-off stacks, incinerators or complete scrubber neutralization systems. AVS also offers leak detection and alert systems, such as hydrogen detection or hydrogen chloride sensors, all which can be fully integrated and interlocked to the customer’s emergency ventilation, SCRAM system or other safety evacuation systems.

AVS industrial autoclave is in use today in several industries, such as composites manufacturing and metal heat treating. Fully certified for ASME Section VIII, Division 1, AVS welds its own pressure vessels, allowing the confidence to offer the only standard 5 year chamber warranty in the industry. AVS automatic hydraulic locking rings securely seal the chamber door for safe, reliable operation under pressure. Specially engineered annular insulation packs with gas circulation nozzles create uniform convective temperatures. Powerful circulation fans with concentrated heater banks and rapidly deployed water cooling also enable AVS industrial autoclave to heat and cool product at the customer-prescribed rates. For applications requiring vacuum bags, AVS offers multiple vacuum controls, valves, filtration and sensor manifolds for user-selectable production set-ups. AVS has delivered systems with over 30 individually selectable vacuum lines. The AVS ACE™ data acquisition and control system constantly monitors and records all data, from the furnace temperature and pressure conditions, to individual product survey thermocouples or vacuum bag parameters.