Thoughtventions Workpiece Viewing Furnaces

Thoughtventions offers optical systems incorporated into its furnaces that allow visual inspection of the hot zone of a furnace operating at any temperature. Viewing of an object in the hot zone can be performed using optical access through the furnace wall (viewport, fiberoptic, endoscope, or transparent wall) or by using a cooled camera inside the furnace.

Furnaces are necessarily insulated, closed systems that are designed to maintain a uniform, fixed temperature using moderate power. To watch the heating of an object the insulation must be modified to see through it coupled with external lighting.

Thoughtventions can supply you with a complete furnace with viewing capability suited to your needs. This could consist of a transparent furnace, or for your existing furnace viewports, fiberoptic imaging, or an endoscope.

One must also usually provide illumination to view the object. At low temperatures a simple light source focused through a small aperture is sufficient. At temperatures above 700 or 800 C the heating elements themselves conveniently illuminate the object, but at higher temperatures all the visible detail is washed out by the strong light that originates at all angles from the bright heating elements. It this case the object must again be illuminated with light that can overcome the furnace element radiation. At moderate temperatures this can be a standard strong light, but at higher temperatures a narrow bandwidth source must be used and the furnace light must be filtered out for viewing by a standard camera.

Another issue is the heat that escapes from the furnace through the optical access port. This can add to the power needed to heat the furnace to a specified temperature and distort the temperature inside the furnace. A properly gold coated window (reflects infrared heat radiation, but transmits visible light) can usually greatly lessen this problem. A narrow band transmissive filter with high reflection outside the band pass can also be used.

Below are listed Thoughtventions optical furnace options:

Objects in a furnace viewed at different temperatures with different equipment Hot Objects Viewed.

A standard sapphire viewport designed for high pressure Sapphire Viewport.

Microscoptic droplet wetting angle imaging Microscopic Image in a hot furnace Droplet Microscopic Imaging Furnace

Sapphire fiber optic viewing Sapphire Fiber Imaging.

Sealed high temperature furnace tube with a transparent segment Sapphire Furnace Tube.

1000 C rated, air cooled optical probe Air Cooled Optical Probe.

Home

Last updated: May 2025