Project #5 from DVA: Hi temperature Thermal Chamber

Attached is a photo of a thermal chamber I made some years ago in school. This was made for testing Zirconium Nitrite material samples for the next generation nuclear fuels.

The thermal chamber sat inside a 3000 W clam shell furnace and heated material samples to 1000°C for compression, 3 point bending and 4 point bending material samples.

The thermal chamber was fabricated out of a 3" 310 series stainless steel as it was best suited for the temperatures the heat thermal chambers design. The end of the chamber has a internal fin heat exchanger with a labyrinth path that were welded to the OD of the 3 inch tube and the heat exchanger had a 6" pipe for the shell. The heat exchanger chilled by the buildings chill water supply (40°F). The center of the thermal chamber has a Sapphire window and graphite gaskets to view the samples during testing. When this thing was up to 1000°C (1832°F) the glow of the metal was awesome.

The ends of the chamber mount in an Instron material testing machine and are attached by a key way on one end and a 4" ball bearing on one end that sits in a machined joint allowing the compression mechanism self align when materials are tested. This mount was fabricated by some friends in shool who used the mount and alignment fixture for their SR design project.

Tools used for fabrication was a various lathes, mill, tig welder, and various saws in the Arizona State University Physics Machine shop and the Mechanical Machine shop.

Cost of the project was around $1000 in materials, much more including other heater parts and machining costs.

I will try to dig up some more pictures but this is the only electronic photo I could find that was posted by one of my class mates who fabricated the mounting system for their SR design project.