Telemetric Furnaces for Advanced Thermal Processing and Sintering Optimisation
Advanced thermal processing requires more than just access to furnace capacity. To optimise sintering, understand process behaviour, and improve final product performance, manufacturers need reliable control of temperature, atmosphere, loading, and heat transfer, together with robust data collection and technical interpretation. Lucideon and The AMRICC Centre offer this through a connected furnace capability that brings together advanced processing, digital monitoring, computational analysis, and post-process testing.
Our Telemetric Furnaces offering combines three complementary furnace technologies: the Telemetric Dual Fuel Furnace, the Extra-wide Electric Furnace, and the Hydrogen-Fired Batch Kiln. Together, these capabilities provide a flexible route for thermal process development, material property evaluation, and data-led optimisation across a wide range of advanced ceramic and high-performance material applications.
When supported by IMPACT™, our integrated materials processing and computational techniques capability, furnace trials can be enhanced through modelling, machine learning, and computational materials engineering to help identify variables, refine process windows, and accelerate development programmes.
A complete thermal processing and analysis package
This capability is designed for manufacturers who need more than a furnace run. It is intended for projects where processing conditions can be linked directly to measurable changes in microstructure, density, thermal response, or mechanical performance. Across Lucideon and The AMRICC Centre, this is supported by a broader capability chain spanning modelling and design, raw material processing, forming, drying and sintering, and analytical evaluation.
This means manufacturers can use the telemetric furnace suite not only to process products under controlled conditions, but also to collect meaningful process data, analyse the outcome using IMPACT™, and test materials or components to understand how thermal exposure and processing parameters have changed final properties or in-service behaviour.
High-temperature experimental test bed
Our large kilns and furnaces, particularly the Extra Wide Electric Furnace, can be used as high-temperature experimental test beds to investigate how heat affects the behaviour of components and structures. This capability is not limited to sintering or thermal processing. It can also be used to assess thermally induced distortion, dimensional change, and other thermomechanical effects during controlled heating.
This is invaluable when customers need to understand how a component performs as temperature increases, whether to support product development, validate design models, or assess likely in-service behaviour. For example, a metallic cylinder could be heated through a defined temperature range to quantify distortion while also examining changes in characteristics such as vibrational harmonics or localised stress development.
When combined with IMPACT™, this experimental work can help relate observed high-temperature behaviour to the underlying material microstructure.
The furnace suite
Telemetric Dual Fuel Furnace
The Telemetric Dual Fuel Furnace is designed for precision in sintering process optimisation. It can operate using either gas up to 1700°C (3092°F) or electric power up to 1600°C (2912°F), independently, allowing firing conditions to be selected according to product and process requirements. This can be combined with advanced computational modelling, continuous monitoring, and mass measurement supporting real-time process understanding and adjustment.
This makes it suitable for improved control over the furnace environment, temperature distribution, heat source selection, heat flow, and product configuration within the firing space.
Extra-wide Electric Furnace
The Extra-wide Electric Furnace is a large-format furnace engineered for precise sintering of substantial ceramic and composite components. It has a 2.5 m x 2 m x 1 m hot zone, operates up to 1200°C (2192°F), and delivers thermal uniformity of less than ±10°C (±18°F) across the whole of the hot zone. It also includes viewing portals for digital data collection and in-process monitoring, as well as an automated cart with vertical lift loading for handling large batches or sizeable parts.
This capability is particularly valuable where scale, thermal uniformity, and process visibility are critical to achieving consistent results.
Hydrogen-Fired Batch Kiln
The Hydrogen-Fired Batch Kiln provides high-temperature processing under hydrogen and hydrogen-inert gas mixtures. It operates up to 1750°C (3182°F), supports ramp rates of up to 300°C (572°F) per hour to 1400°C (2552°F) and then 100°C (212°F) per hour to maximum temperature, and can fire with up to 100% hydrogen. The advanced flue gas analysis enables monitoring of NOx, SOx, and water vapour under different hydrogen-gas mixtures.
IMPACT™-enabled optimisation
IMPACT™ extends the value of furnace processing by adding computational tools to the development workflow. It uses finite element analysis, machine learning, and computational materials engineering to optimise the design, synthesis, and characterisation of novel and existing materials and processes.
For telemetric furnace projects, this provides a route to interpret data more effectively, reducing unnecessary experimental iterations, and connecting thermal properties with material response in a more structured and technically informed way.
Benefits
- Optimisation of thermal processing with better insight through a combination of advanced furnace environments, monitoring, and computational analysis
- Select the most appropriate firing route using gas, electric, large-format electric, or hydrogen-based processing within one co-ordinated technical programme
- Generate high-value process data using continuous monitoring, digital data collection, and flue gas analysis
- Accelerate process optimisation with modelling, machine learning, and computational materials engineering through IMPACT™
- De-risk scale-up and process change by linking pilot-scale thermal processing with downstream testing and evaluation
- Understand how process changes affect final properties through co-located testing, characterisation, and analysis
- Support hydrogen and decarbonisation programmes through advanced hydrogen firing capability and emissions-related monitoring
- Reduce project complexity by accessing process development, computational support, and post-process testing through one connected capability base
Why choose Lucideon and The AMRICC Centre?
Lucideon and The AMRICC Centre combine advanced thermal processing with materials science, consultancy, testing, and computational capability. The telemetric furnace offering is suitable for technically demanding programmes where you need to move from controlled furnace trials to validated process understanding, supported by evidence from modelling, monitoring, and post-process testing.
Related capabilities
Our telemetric furnace offer can be supported by a wider set of capabilities across Lucideon and The AMRICC Centre, including raw material processing, forming, densification, microstructural analysis, thermal analysis, high-temperature performance testing, Hot Stage XRD, FEG-SEM, dilatometry, and broader characterisation services.
Talk to us
Whether you need to optimise an existing sintering process, trial a hydrogen-based firing route, assess thermal behaviour in large components, or generate the data needed to understand how processing affects final material properties, our team can build a programme around the most appropriate furnace capability, IMPACT™ support, and downstream testing package.