A common use of a vacuum furnace is for the heat treatment of steel alloys. Many general heat treating applications involve the hardening and tempering of a steel part ot make it strong and though through servic. Hardening involves heating the steel to a pre-determined temperature, then cooling it rapidly.

 Vaccum furnaces are ideal for brazing applications. Brazing is another heat-treating process used to join two or more base metal components by melting a thin layer of filler metal in the space between them.

A further application for vacuum furncaes is vacuum caburizing also known as Low Pressure Carburizing or LPC. In this process a gas is introduced as a partial pressure into the hot zone at temperatures typically between 1600F and 1950F. The gas disassociates into its constituent elements. The carbon is then diffused into the surface area of the part. This function is typically repeated, varying the duration og gas input an ddiffusiion time.