High-Throughput Serial Production Line for Hot Pressing of Large Area Ceramic Components

摘要

Certain ceramic or powder metallic parts are made by pressure-assisted sintering methods, e.g. hot pressing. In the last decade, it was possible to increase the cost-efficiency of these methods significantly by the development of rapid field-assisted sintering methods, but the lengthy cooling process is still a problem, especially for large-area parts. To overcome this difficulty, a high-throughput serial production line for hot pressing of large-area components was designed and built. A combination of different innovative design features allows an overall optimization of the production process, resulting in a multiplication of the previous productivity. Basically, this concept is applicable for the improvement of pressureless as well as pressure-assisted sintering methods, besides hot pressing also various rapid FAST methods. This report explains the different optimization steps realized and specifies the performance of this newly developed production line.