Microwave heating of boron steel blanks prior to the hot-stamping process
AssigneeMateria Group Corporation
InventorsDavid M. Vickers, Manoj Gupta, Terry Cable
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method of heating a steel blank using a microwave heating furnace system for the hot stamping process includes providing a steel blank having a thickness ranging from 1 mm to 1.8 mm, pre-heating the streel blank to an initial temperature in a pre-heat chamber of the microwave heating furnace system, and directly heating the steel blank using microwave energy in a main heating zone of the microwave heating furnace system from the initial temperature to a temperature greater than 850° C. in less than 240 seconds.
Claims18
A method of heating a metal blank using a microwave heating furnace system for a hot stamping process, the method comprising the steps of:
- providing a metal blank having a thickness ranging from 1 mm to 1.8 mm;
- pre-heating the metal blank to an initial temperature in a pre-heat chamber of the microwave heating furnace system;
- and
- directly heating the metal blank using microwave energy in a main heating chamber of the microwave heating furnace system from the initial temperature to a temperature greater than 850° C. in less than 240 seconds.
A microwave heating furnace system for heating metal blanks for hot stamping, comprising:
- an incoming feed for feeding a metal blank into the furnace system;
- a pre-heat chamber for heating the metal blank to an initial temperature;
- a main heating zone adjacent to the pre-heat chamber having at least one heating sub-zone, the main heating zone configured to heat the metal blank from the pre-heat chamber to a second temperature in a processing time between 180 and 240 seconds;
- an outgoing section for transferring the metal blank to a subsequent hot stamping process;
- and
- a continuous conveyor system from the incoming feed through the pre-heat chamber and the main heating zone to the outgoing section for transferring the metal blank to the hot-stamping process.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.