Vacuum brazing can allow the bonding of materials using a filler material that doesn’t require a separate flux to keep oxides at bay. Maintaining a vacuum throughout the braze does most of the work of keeping oxygen out of the process. This matters for customers that have very specific parts where any of the chemicals or metals that may be included in a flux could create unwanted impurities within the final bond. It results in delivering exceptionally clean parts.
Because vacuum furnaces are designed with temperature control in mind, metallurgists know that a vacuum furnace can heat up the brazing material and the parts to be joined with precision, uniformity, and repeatability. Parts with architectural complexity that need to be joined in hard-to-reach places, or assemblies with a large number of joints are more easily brazed in a vacuum furnace environment.
Vacuum brazing is also outstanding when two parts with either very thin or very thick cross sections need to be connected with some structural integrity. Thin stock parts rely on the precision temperature control not to warp, while thicker cross-section parts can count on the thermocouple monitoring to ensure a proper soak time, heating the part evenly.
The atmosphere and temperature control found in a vacuum furnace allows for a consistent temperature for parts with complex surfaces. By heating and quenching parts at a predictable rate, a vacuum furnace provides exceptional control over transforming the brazing alloy to liquid at a temperature that will not transform or distort the parts to be bonded.
Another significant advantage of using a vacuum brazing solution is the ability to control process byproducts. Vacuum furnace systems are built to control and process exhaust better than a comparable salt bath or atmospheric solution, and don’t require harsh chemicals or molten salts that would need to be carefully contained and disposed of. Clean vacuum brazing recipes don’t require additional post-processing parts cleaning, which also reduces chemical waste.
