About Fluoride-Ion Cleaning at AMC
  Home Page | About Page | Contact Page | Favorite Links | Custom Page | Custom2 Page | Custom3 Page | Custom4 Page | Photo6 Page  

Company Involvement
The company has been involved with the technology and practice of fluoride-ion cleaning beginning in 1985 when the process was initially tested under funding by the USAF to develop a technique which would permit a means to prepare vane components for braze repair. (The process is typically not used on blades due to the limiting temperature of the braze formulation.) In 1986, the current technical director/vice president of technology presented a paper at ICMC - San Diego describing the process - its functions and its capabilities and has been active in the design and operation of "Fluoride-Ion" cleaning operations since that time.

Variations of the process
Typically, there are 4 process variants used in the process - HF gas, teflon (also called the "Dayton Process", CF4 or Carbon Tetrafluoride Gas and the "big-burp" chrome fluoride process. Each process has its positives and negatives which can be discuused in detail simply by calling our technical personnel at AMC.

What the process does:
As is evident above in the graphs, both aluminum and titanium - the spinel formers - undergo alloy depletion. This means simply that the alloy has these elements "taken out" or removed from the outer skin. Depletion rate and depth is a function of time (rate here is typically inversely proportional to the square root of time), temperature as well as the elemental concentration in the original alloy. In addition, the HF process converts the oxides present to volatile fluorides which - when present in cracks - leaves the crack free of oxides.

Email the company! lou.pochet@outlook.com

Link to Main AMC site. http://amc-cvdcoatings.freeservers.com