CAB Furnace Atmosphere Visualisation Using Computational Fluid Dynamics

In today’s automotive industry almost all car and truck radiators, oil coolers and air conditioning heat exchangers are manufactured using Nocolok Controlled Atmosphere Brazing (CAB). One of the most critical elements of the brazing process is the atmosphere used to protect the flux. Oxygen content is the major variable affecting the performance of the nitrogen atmosphere. Furnace design and flow rate are the major factors affecting oxygen content. Optimisation of these atmosphere parameters has a significant impact on operating cost, and on the quality and consistency of the brazed product. Computational fluid dynamics provides a tool to visualise the atmosphere conditions within the furnace and to explore the effects of changing some of the variables. Modelling the atmosphere in a typical CAB furnace has shown the importance of the integrity of the curtains in maintaining the low oxygen levels required for successful Nocolok brazing. For a given set of curtains it has shown that the only effective way of decreasing oxygen levels is to increase atmosphere gas flow.