The Ternary Gas Plasma Weldings Torch

Electron-beam welding has many advantages over other welding techniques. One of the prime advantages of electron-beam welding is the ability to make welds that are deeper and narrower than conventional welds. A second advantage is higher welding speeds, which are due to the high melting rate associated with the concentrated heat source.Electron-beam welding has many advantages over other welding techniques. One of the prime advantages of electron-beam welding is the ability to make welds that are deeper and narrower than conventional welds.

Present-day electron-beam welding is performed in a vacuum chamber, limiting the size of the work piece that can be welded. Maintaining the vacuum requires pumps that use a lot of electricity and special, expensive lubricants that must be disposed of as waste.

Hershcovitch said, This grant provides the opportunity to commercialize the plasma window that I started to design a decade ago. I am very pleased that Acceleron will work on testing it and bringing it to the marketplace. I expect that it will be a commercially successful energy-efficient device.

In present-day technology, an electron-beam welder consists of an electron gun enclosed in a vacuum box that can be as large as a room but is generally much smaller due to efficiency considerations. In contrast, in the new non-vacuum electron-beam welding method, the plasma window is mounted on the electron gun and maintains the small vacuum area needed to propagate the electron beam.

The plasma window is about 40 times as hot as the air at room temperature. This intense heat makes the ionized atoms and molecules move around faster and collide more often with air molecules, thus stopping most of them when they try to cross the plasma window.

Hershcovitch likens the plasma window to the force field window in the shuttle bay area of the Starship Enterprise in Star Trek. The force field separates atmospheric pressure in the Enterprise from the vacuum in outer space. In the plasma window, hot ionized gas particles are trapped by electric and magnetic fields. The particles, like any gas, exert pressure, which prevents air from rushing into the vacuum chamber housing the electron gun.