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Abstract

Vacuum carburizing of ferrous workpieces is performed at low pressure in a vacuum furnace using a napthene hydrocarbon as the carburizing medium. The furnace is constructed to be generally transparent to the napthene so that cracking tends to occur at the workpiece which functions as a catalyst to minimize carbon deposits. The napthene is supplied in liquid form to fuel injectors which inject the liquid napthene as a vapor at duty cycles and firing orders to produce a uniform dispersion of the hydrocarbon gas about the work resulting in uniform carburizing of the workpieces. An in-situ methane infrared sensor controls the process. Hydrogen is added to the napthene to either assure full carbon potential and produce methane or to perform variable carburizing.

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First Claim