The combination of a well-equipped technology center and an experienced team of technicians, engineers, and scientists offers ideal prerequisites for developing a production-capable sintering technology within a short time that is precisely matched to the requirements of a ceramic or powder metallurgical component. Moreover, through practical verification of the specifications that must be satisfied, a high level of investment security is provided for the user.

The sintering units in the Technical Center for customer projects provide a selection of the most important state-of the art technical and scientific sintering processes. The machine park is updated on a regular basis and the available equipment is maintained at the highest technical level through optimizations and extensions. Currently the following sintering systems are available:

For a typical customer project, after the initial contact, depending on the requirements, first the basis for an open and effective collaboration is established, in that protection of each party's know-how is assured. Confidential treatment of the customer's knowledge is a matter of course for FCT and is frequently substantiated in writing through non-disclosure agreements. Then, after the customer has defined and precisely specified his task, an initial pooling of results, experience and knowledge takes place, on this basis practical sintering trials are planned in one of the Technology Center's systems that appears to be suitable given the information available at this time. The results of these trials are then analyzed and assessed in close collaboration with the customer, and building on these analyses and evaluations either additional trials will be planned, or if necessary there will be additional upscaling in the direction of the required production scale. After the desired results have been completely achieved, the results obtained and the experience gained in the course of the customer project will flow into the design of a customer-specific sintering system. Through this procedure a sintering system can be offered to the customer that is precisely matched to his task definition. Simultaneously, at this time the sintering cycles that must be demonstrated for the later equipment acceptance procedure can now be coordinated together with the customer. Thus the entire procedure gives the customer a high degree of security that the investment that he is making will precisely result in the solution that he requires for the ceramic or powder metallurgical process he his planning.

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