To determine the optimal flow rate of a carburizing gas for carburizing an article to be treated, which is supplied to a carburizing chamber in a continuous carburizing furnace without determining a CP (carbon potential) value by an O2 sensor.
Preliminarily, a discriminator 31, which discriminates an article S to be treated, measures the total weight and surface area of the article to prepare lookup tables between the weights placed in order or surface areas placed in order and the number of the articles. Based on the tables, each placed number is multiplied by the corresponding number of the articles, and all the products are added to produce a sum. A table in which the sums are placed in ascending order is prepared in advance. A preferred flow rate of the carburizing gas is preliminarily surveyed by supplying the gas to the categorized article S. A lookup table between the sum and the preferred flow rate is prepared and the table is stored in a storage/control section 32. The sum of the articles to be carburized is obtained by the discriminator 31 in advance of carburizing and the sum is input to the storage/control section 32. Then a signal of the flow rate of the carburizing gas preferable to the carburizing, which is determined based on the lookup table, is sent to a flow rate control section 33 to operate the control section 33 to supply the appropriate amount of carburizing gas to the carburizing chamber 3 in the continuous carburizing furnace 1.
Miyazaki Yoshio
Kaoru Onozuka
Akio Tagami
High Masahiro
Tsutomu Kato
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