Vacuum brazing is a materials joining technique that offers significant advantages: extremely clean, superior, flux-free braze joints of high integrity and strength. The process can be expensive because it must be performed inside a vacuum chamber. Temperature uniformity is maintained on the work piece when heating in a vacuum, greatly reducing residual stresses due to slow heating and cooling cycles. This, in turn, can significantly improve the thermal and mechanical properties of the material, thus providing unique heat treatment capabilities. Please contact an Applied Thermal Technologies team member to discuss your vacuum furnace brazing needs.

Filler Metals

Gold Alloys
Silver Alloys
Nickel Alloys
Copper Alloys
Palladium Alloys
or other alloys

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The lower temperature of brazing is less likely to distort the work piece or induce thermal stresses. For example, when large iron castings crack, it is almost always impractical to repair them with welding. In order to weld cast-iron without recracking it from thermal stress, the work piece must be hot-soaked to 1600 °F. When a large (more than fifty kilograms (100 lb)) casting cracks in an industrial setting, heat-soaking it for welding is almost always impractical. Often the casting only needs to be watertight, or take mild mechanical stress. Brazing is the premium, preferred repair method in these cases.For thin workpieces (e.g., sheet metal or thin-walled pipe) brazing is less likely to result in burn-through.

Brazing can also be a cheap and effective technique for mass production. Components can be assembled with preformed plugs of filler material positioned at joints and then heated in a furnace or passed through heating stations on an assembly line. The heated filler then flows into the joints by capillary action.

Braze-welded joints generally have smooth attractive beads that do not require additional grinding or finishing. The most common filler materials are dull in color, but fillers that more closely match the color of the base materials can be used if appearance is important.