A Journey of Ten Thousand Miles | Central Electric Furnace: Unveiling the Success Stories Behind Its Over 10,000 Sintering Expert Customers

Upon arriving at Tianjin Zhonghuan Electric Furnace Co., Ltd. (Zhonghuan Electric Furnace), the Powder Industry Ten-Thousand-Li Tour team learned that the company’s high-temperature sintering equipment is already in use by more than 10,000 customers. While deeply impressed, the team members were also keen to uncover the source of Zhonghuan Electric Furnace’s remarkable strength. As they toured the workshops and laboratories and conducted in-depth interviews, the answers gradually emerged.

1. Timely response

The response referred to here primarily means Two aspects Sun Lan, head of the Marketing Department, explained that on the one hand, many universities and corporate clients have sudden and urgent needs for experimental teaching as well as R&D and production, with extremely tight delivery deadlines. The traditional make-to-order production model is unable to cope with such situations, so the company has implemented A safety stock of 400 to 500 sets facilitates rapid shipment; on the other hand, the development of non-standard, custom-made products often requires continuous optimization and adjustment. The currently popular manufacturing model of outsourcing production and assembly can lead to significant delays in delivery schedules. In contrast, Zhonghuan Electric Furnace integrates all production processes, including sheet-metal fabrication, directly into its own workshop, enabling it to make timely revisions and refinements without ever leaving the factory—right up until the customer is fully satisfied.

2. Horizontal

Zhonghuan Electric Furnace has pioneered the integration of optical technology with thermal analysis technology in China and developed “ Visualization “product series. Taking the sintering observation furnace as an example, clear images can be captured and recorded, enabling real-time monitoring of material property changes during high-temperature sintering, such as thermal expansion and contraction, softening and deformation, cracking, and warping. This facilitates the formulation and optimization of sintering processes, thereby improving product quality and reducing production costs.”

Beyond visualization, the Central Electric Furnace has also collaborated with the Chief Scientist of the China Building Materials Testing and Certification Group, and has received Professor Bao Yiwang, a recipient of the National Outstanding Youth Science Fund and a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ “Hundred Talents Program,” has collaborated to develop the world’s first “ In-situ High-Temperature Visualization Testing machine “This enables the evaluation and characterization of the mechanical properties of advanced ceramics and ceramic matrix composites under extreme high-temperature loading conditions. By employing image-based comparative methods, it addresses the challenging issues in high-temperature testing that are difficult to resolve using conventional approaches, thereby demonstrating significant practical value for assessing high-temperature creep, high-temperature hardness, high-temperature energy dissipation, and thermal stresses in ceramic coatings.”

3. Longitudinal

Having visited numerous advanced ceramic customers, the “Ten-Thousand-Li Journey” team has observed that the rated temperature of sintering equipment is typically below At 1700°C, some equipment rated for 1800°C is typically limited to shorter operating durations, with the commonly used temperature generally around 1650°C. With the growing domestic interest in high-entropy ceramics and ultra-high-temperature alloys, , Silicon Carbide Ongoing research and development in new materials such as fibers is continually advancing, thereby placing increasingly stringent demands on sintering equipment. Through comprehensive upgrades to furnace chamber materials, electric heating elements, and gas-path components—coupled with cutting-edge insulation and thermal-sensing technologies—Zhonghuan Electric Furnace has officially launched a product capable of operating continuously for extended periods at 1800℃ Operating electric furnace.

4. Customized Solutions

High-Temperature Water-Oxygen Corrosion Tester —In fields such as gas turbines and aerospace, it is essential to accurately simulate the high-temperature, high-water-vapor partial-pressure, and high-water-vapor-velocity conditions encountered in turbine-engine operating environments, and to conduct cyclic testing for thermal corrosion and steam oxidation of materials, thereby enabling a reliable assessment of their thermochemical stability. The instrument developed by Zhonghuan Electric Furnace comprises an air-inlet control system, a liquid-inlet control system, a uniform vaporization unit, heated piping, and a heating reactor, among other components, and is capable of meeting the testing requirements for a wide range of materials, including functional ceramics, structural ceramics and ceramic-matrix composites, ultra-high-temperature alloys, and high-temperature thermal-barrier coatings.

High-temperature, high-speed water-oxygen corrosion tester (left); high-temperature static water-oxygen corrosion tester (right).

Summary

This article aims not only to share the industry knowledge gained by the Wanli Xing study group, but also to convey Mr. Zhang’s insights into the future development of the industry. —Product development must follow a “theory-to-engineering-to-application” process, with a focus on identifying and selecting research outcomes that can both be placed on the bookshelf and on the retail shelf, thereby enabling rapid translation into practical use. It is hoped that Mr. Zhang’s approach—viewing scientific innovation as a complete value chain that spans from theoretical breakthroughs to commercial value and emphasizing the seamless integration and value validation at each stage of technology transfer—will serve as a valuable reference for the manufacturing sector.

Source: Powder Circle – Exclusive Corporate Interview

Original article link: https://www.360powder.com/info_details/index/13002.html