Thermal Vacuum Bakeout Facility TVAC #3
(Coming 2020)

Ensuring proper vacuum bakeout of flight hardware is increasingly important to mission success. Our thermal vacuum chambers TVAC#1 and TVAC#2 are regularly operated for monitored vacuum bakeout of test and flight hardware to ECSS-Q-ST-70-01 and so at the end of 2019 we expanded our thermal vacuum facilities by building TVAC#3. This chamber is dimensionally identical to TVAC#2.

The facility differs slightly to TVAC#2 in that a water cooled baffle between the main chamber and pumping well means the turbo pump and backing lines are protected from contamination. Initially planned as a bakeout facility for non-flight grade hardware, we designed the system for coupling the pumps to the chamber such that the whole chamber can be cleaned and flushed through without endangering turbo or backing pump. We have since up-graded the whole system to be a replication of TVAC#2. The features and specifications are given below. 

Features

  • PID controlled thermal plate with resistive heating and liquid channels for cooling either by chiller circulator or LN2
  • Cold trap with removable fascia for lab analysis if required
  • QCM for bakeout monitoring 
  • Residual Gas Analyser (Hiden Analytical)
  • Standard 16 T-type thermocouple channels (more channels, or different TC types can be added with notice)
  • Temperature, pressure, QCM and RGA all logged digitally
  • Door seal and chamber wall fluid cooling lines for high temperature tests (>300°C)
  • Scroll pump and magnetically levitated turbo molecular pump meaning a completely oil-free pumping system

Specifications

  • Specimen length [mm]: 450.0
  • Specimen width/dia [mm]: 540.0
  • Specimen height/thk [mm]: 400.0
  • Mass max. [kg]: 20.0
  • Higher temperature [K]: 773.15
  • Lower temperature [K]: 83.15
  • Feedthroughs: Thermocouple, RTD, Fluid, Power, (additional at request)
  • Data acquisition: Temperature, pressure, QCM frequency, RGA
  • Vacuum limit [hPa] [mbar]: 1E-7