HEATING APPARATUS AND METHOD

摘要

A heating apparatus (100) arranged, in use, to accommodate an electrically conductive work-piece (300) comprising two or more parts (302,304) of which at least one part is a sheet of conductive material (302) of up to 3mm thick, and the apparatus comprising at least one coil (102) having a first face (106) arranged, in use, to be adjacent, the electrically conductive work-piece (300) of which the part adjacent the first face is a sheet (302) of conductive material of up to 3mm thickness, and a second face (108) on an opposite side of the coil (102) from the first face (106), and the apparatus (100) also comprising a flux- intensifier (110) which is provided adjacent the second face (108) and the radial outer face (112) and a temperature sensor (410) arranged to measure the temperature of the work- piece (300) wherein, in use, the coil (102) is arranged to have electric current passed therethrough and the coil (102) and flux-intensifier (110) are arranged to concentrate the resultant magnetic flux in a localised surface region of roughly between 0.1mm and 0mm diameter of the electrically conductive work-piece (300) in order to heat the two or more parts of the work-piece in the localised region to a substantially uniform temperature suitable for diffusion bonding across the localised region (307) of the two or more parts of the work-piece (300) in a time between roughly a few milliseconds and roughly 5 minutes and wherein the apparatus is arranged to control the temperature according to the temperature sensor (410)