Thin-wall long glass bead sintering method, connector socket assembly, sintering method and socket

Abstract

The invention discloses a thin-wall long glass bead sintering method, a connector socket assembly, a sintering method and a socket, and relates to the technical field of deep sea watertight connectors. The thin-wall long glass bead with the wall thickness smaller than 0.65 mm and the height-thickness ratio larger than 10 is formed through sintering, the thin-wall long glass bead is applied to a watertight connector socket, the watertight connector socket can adapt to the water depth of thousands of meters or even tens of thousands of meters, compared with a rubber connector, the service life is longer, and the problems of corrosion, abrasion and the like do not exist; compared with a common whole blank type glass burning connector, the pressure bearing level is higher, and the glass burning connector can be well applied especially under the application conditions that the number of cores is large and the diameter is large.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] The present invention relates to the technical field of deep - sea watertight connectors. Specifically, it is a sintering method for thin - wall long glass beads, a connector socket assembly, a sintering method, and a socket. Background Art

[0002] With the continuous exploration of the human into the deep - sea area, the diving depth of deep - sea equipment and platforms is getting deeper and deeper. More connectors suitable for water depths of thousands of meters or even tens of thousands of meters are required, and in environments with high reliability requirements, vertical - sealing watertight connectors are in high demand. In the industry, most deep - sea connectors use rubber connectors, whose main body is rubber. The service life of organic materials is limited, and they are prone to wear during long - term plugging and unplugging, prone to mold growth, and have low reliability. When there are technical requirements for a large number of cores, a small size, a relatively high working insulation resistance, and long - term underwater use, it cannot meet the requirements and is thus not adopted.

[0003] Thin - wall glass sintering is very conventional when the height - to - wall - thickness ratio is 4 - 5 or less. However, when the glass wall thickness is less than 0.65 mm and the height - to - wall - thickness ratio reaches 10 or more, this kind of thin - wall long - glass - bead sintering is a recognized technical difficulty in the industry. Regardless of the shell or pin - core material, it is a common phenomenon that the insulation resistance and withstand voltage are unqualified after sintering.

[0004] After exploration, the inventor found that the reason for this phenomenon is the existence of cavities in the glass body after sintering. For slender - tube glass blanks, the glass beads will bend after vitrification, and a large die - loading gap needs to be reserved to compensate for the bending deformation. Otherwise, not only will the die - loading be difficult, but it will also cause more serious gas entrapment when the melted material collapses and fills the sealing cavity during sintering. Therefore, the core of the process technology for thin - wall long - glass - bead sintering focuses on special process methods to reduce air bubbles.

[0005] It should be noted here that in other non - thin - wall cases, air - bubble cavities are common in glass sintering. As long as the cavities are not large enough compared to the wall thickness, they do not affect any use performance. However, the allowable cavities in the thin - wall long - glass - bead glass structure must be smaller. Exactly when sintering thin - wall long - glass beads, the space is narrow and vertically high, and it is difficult for the middle air bubbles to escape and be excluded against the viscosity of the glass. As the temperature rises and expands by more than 1000 °C during sintering and converges, air - bubble cavities are formed, resulting in unqualified water - pressure resistance and electrical properties.

[0006] In the past, when facing this kind of structure, two or more short glass beads were sintered together by overlapping. There are compositional stratifications at the joint surface of the two beads, and gas entrapment is also serious. It is difficult to meet the requirements for water - pressure resistance and insulation resistance after sintering, and the qualified rate is very low. When using the method of cutting and drawing glass tubes, it is inevitable that trace lubricant components that cannot be observed penetrate into the drawn - tube structure and sublimate into air bubbles during high - temperature sintering. It is very easy for the insulation resistance of one or several cores in a large - number - of - cores structure to be unqualified, and the general qualified rate is very low. Moreover, for the same height of glass, the water - pressure resistance strength is much lower than that of sintering granulated powder blanks. Summary of the Invention

[0007] One of the objectives of the present invention is to provide a sintering method for thin-walled long glass beads, so as to solve the problem that for glass beads with a wall thickness less than 0.65 mm and a height-to-wall thickness ratio greater than 10, the insulation resistance and withstand voltage of deep-sea water-pressure watertight connectors are unqualified after sintering.

[0008] Another objective of the present invention is to provide a connector socket assembly, so as to solve the problem that in deep-water operations, the service life and reliability of the socket assembly of rubber connectors are low, and the applicable situations are easily limited.

[0009] The third objective of the present invention is to provide a sintering method for a commonly used connector socket assembly, so as to solve the problem that after sintering the thin-walled large height-to-thickness ratio thin-walled glass beads in the connector socket assembly, the water pressure resistance and electrical performance of the connector are unqualified.

[0010] The fourth objective of the present invention is to provide a connector socket, so as to solve the problem that in deep-water operations, the service life and reliability of rubber connectors are low, and the applicable situations are easily limited.

[0011] In order to achieve the above-mentioned first objective, the present invention adopts the following technical means: A sintering method for thin-walled long glass beads, comprising the following steps: S1. Construct a pressing mold for thin-walled long glass beads; Among them, during pressing, multiple scraping and filling operations are used for pressing.

[0012] S2. Slowly raise the temperature to the debinding temperature, and keep the temperature at the debinding temperature. The holding time is at least twice the heating time; Among them, the debinding process is carried out in an exhaust furnace or a chain furnace. Furthermore, by slowly raising the temperature to a specific temperature and carrying out debinding under a long-time holding state, it is possible to avoid too small shrinkage of the preform volume and initial softening of the glass surface, which closes the outlet gaps for discharging the air between the particles during subsequent sintering.

[0013] S3. After debinding, perform vacuum vitrification to obtain thin-walled long glass beads.

[0014] Preferably, in the step S1, the pressing mold for thin-walled long glass beads is used to construct thin-walled long glass beads with an inner hole, a wall thickness less than 0.65 mm, and a height-to-wall thickness ratio not less than 10.

[0015] Furthermore, in the step S2, the debinding temperature is 330 °C, and it is controlled to raise the temperature to the debinding temperature in 2 hours, and the holding time is 4 hours.

[0016] In the 2-hour heating process, the temperature is raised at a uniform rate, and the clean debinding is completed in the 4-hour heat preservation. This is obviously different from the conventional rapid debinding by heating. With the above advantages, it can not only make the debinding more thorough, but also homogenize the preform, which is helpful to form a uniform glass phase of thin-walled long strips in the subsequent sintering process.

[0017] In order to achieve the second of the above objectives, based on the above technical solutions, this application adopts the following means: A connector socket assembly, comprising a thin-walled long glass bead prepared by the above-mentioned sintering method and a shell having a sealing portion; A through hole for passing the plug pin is configured at the position of the sealing portion, and the thin-walled long glass bead is sintered and positioned between the inner wall of the through hole and the plug pin.

[0018] In this way, thin-walled long glass beads are sintered to seal the pins and the through holes to form a sealing structure, which allows the socket assembly to be used in the connector in water depths of thousands or even tens of thousands of meters.

[0019] Preferably, the height of the thin-walled long glass bead is greater than 7 mm, and the distance between the two ends of the thin-walled long glass bead and the two ends of the through hole is 0.3-2 mm.

[0020] In this way, after the sealing is completed, the water pressure test shows that a reliable longitudinal sealing strength of 70MPa can be guaranteed. At the same time, after the sintering is completed, by controlling the distance between the two ends of the thin-walled long glass beads and the two ends of the through hole, the shear stress of the exposed plane caused by the thermal expansion and contraction of the shell is prevented from causing cracks on the glass surface, and the gas released from the shell between the glass beads during the sintering process is prevented, causing the shell surface at both ends of the hole to turn black and yellow, and at the same time, the glass flow is prevented from protruding from the plane during the sintering process.

[0021] Furthermore, the shell is one of a titanium alloy shell, a stainless steel shell or a copper alloy shell.

[0022] Furthermore, the plug pin is a transfer plug pin with both ends being plug-in ends, and the plug pin is made of one of an iron-nickel alloy, an iron-nickel-cobalt alloy or a copper alloy.

[0023] In order to achieve the third objective, the connector socket assembly is sintered in the following manner: the housing, the thin-walled long glass bead, the plug pin and the sintering mold are assembled and then sintered in a vacuum furnace; During sintering, the temperature is raised to an environment 160° C. higher than the softening point of the thin-walled long glass beads, and the temperature is kept for at least 10 minutes. Before the sealing temperature, vacuum backfilling with protective gas is performed.

[0024] In this way, based on the performance of the aforementioned thin-walled long glass beads after sintering, during the process of keeping warm at 160°C above the softening point for 10 minutes, the glass blank can effectively avoid popcorn-like splashing during conventional vitrification, and even when popcorn-like splashing does not occur, some bubbles in the superficial tissue of the glass blank can escape and be eliminated, and the liquid glass can easily and continuously fill the sealing cavity, while preventing air from being trapped during the wetting process of the thin glass and metal.

[0025] Furthermore, the backfill pressure of the vacuum backfill protective gas is 0.017~0.018MPa.

[0026] The protective gas here is argon. Under the backfilling effect of a certain pressure, after the aforementioned insulation and exhaust are completed, it can prevent the volume of unexcluded bubbles from expanding with the temperature rising, causing the bursting beads to spray out of the sealing cavity. At the same time, it compacts the filling glass and avoids the existence of large air cavities in the glass phase after sintering. Under the same observation conditions, the thin-walled glass bead sintered body has no obvious visible bubbles, which can minimize the void volume of the sintered structure, achieve a denser bond with the titanium alloy, and meet the water pressure resistance requirements.

[0027] Furthermore, in order to achieve the third objective above, the present invention adopts the following technical means: A connector socket, comprising the aforementioned socket assembly, wherein the socket assembly is sintered by the aforementioned sintering method; One end of the socket assembly is connected with a mounting plate assembly, and the other end of the socket assembly is installed with an end cover.

[0028] Preferably, the mounting plate assembly is used to connect the watertight cable assembly, and the end cap is used to drag and seal the socket.

[0029] The technical solution of the present invention has the following beneficial effects: Compared with rubber connectors, the internal sealing part is a thin-walled long glass bead glass sintering structure prepared by this application, which has a longer service life and does not have problems such as corrosion and wear; compared with ordinary whole-blank glass-sintered connectors, it has a higher pressure-bearing level and can adapt to water depths of thousands or even tens of thousands of meters. For example, the level of more than 3,000 meters that cannot be achieved by large-sized whole-blank glass beads can reach 8,000 meters or even tens of thousands of meters. Compared with other glass bead forming methods, the qualified rate of insulation withstand voltage is higher and the scrap rate is low. Especially under the application conditions of a large number of cores and a large diameter, when the diameter of the glass blank is relatively large, the whole-blank glass surface is prone to bursting because it cannot withstand high pressure.

[0030] For the thin-walled long glass beads applied to the connector socket in this application, they are kept at a temperature 160°C higher than the glass softening temperature for 10 minutes. Before this, not only will the glass not spurt out in a popcorn-like manner, but also a part of the bubbles in the superficial tissue of the glass blank will escape and be removed. The liquid glass is easily filled into the sealing cavity continuously and approximately, achieving the purpose of no gas entrapment during the wetting process between the thin glass and the metal. Finally, argon is backfilled at 0.017 - 0.018 MPa to prevent the volume of the unremoved bubbles from expanding with the temperature increase and causing the explosion of the glass beads out of the sealing cavity. At the same time, the filling glass is compacted to minimize the cavity volume of the sintered structure to achieve a denser combination with the titanium alloy and meet the water pressure resistance requirements. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0031] Figure 1 It is a schematic structural diagram of the connector socket assembly of the present invention.

[0032] Among them, 1 - pin, 2 - thin-walled long glass bead, 3 - housing. SPECIFIC EMBODIMENTS

[0033] To make the purpose, technical solutions, and advantages of the embodiments of the present invention clearer, the technical solutions in the embodiments of the present invention will be clearly and completely described below in conjunction with the drawings in the embodiments of the present invention. Obviously, the described embodiments are part of the embodiments of the present invention, rather than all of the embodiments. Usually, the components of the embodiments of the present invention described and shown in the drawings here can be arranged and designed in various different configurations.

[0034] Therefore, the following detailed description of the embodiments of the present invention provided in the drawings is not intended to limit the scope of the claimed present invention, but merely represents the selected embodiments of the present invention. Based on the embodiments of the present invention, all other embodiments obtained by those of ordinary skill in the art without creative efforts belong to the scope of protection of the present invention.

[0035] It should be noted that, without conflict, the embodiments in the present invention and the features in the embodiments can be combined with each other.

[0036] It should be noted that similar reference numerals and letters denote similar items in the following drawings. Therefore, once an item is defined in one drawing, it does not need to be further defined and explained in subsequent drawings.

[0037] In the description of the present invention, it should be noted that the terms "center", "upper", "lower", "left", "right", "vertical", "horizontal", "inside", "outside", etc. indicate positions or positional relationships based on the positions or positional relationships shown in the accompanying drawings, or the positions or positional relationships in which the product of the invention is usually placed when in use, or the positions or positional relationships commonly understood by those skilled in the art, which are only for the convenience of describing the present invention and simplifying the description, and do not indicate or imply that the device or element referred to must have a specific orientation, be constructed and operated in a specific orientation, and therefore cannot be understood as limiting the present invention. In addition, the terms "first", "second", etc. are only used to distinguish the description, and cannot be understood as indicating or implying relative importance.

[0038] In the description of the present invention, it is also necessary to explain that, unless otherwise clearly specified and limited, the terms "set", "install", "connect", and "connect" should be understood in a broad sense, for example, it can be a fixed connection, a detachable connection, or an integral connection; it can be a mechanical connection or an electrical connection; it can be a direct connection, or it can be indirectly connected through an intermediate medium, or it can be the internal communication of two elements. For ordinary technicians in this field, the specific meanings of the above terms in the present invention can be understood according to specific circumstances.

[0039] like Figure 1 As shown, during the design, it is necessary to first perform stress simulation on the shell 3 to determine whether there are any weak parts in the external water-immersed part and determine the shell thickness of the water-immersed pressure-bearing part. At the same time, the socket shell 3 is a titanium alloy shell, a stainless steel shell or a copper alloy shell, etc., and the sealing part is punched to form a through hole according to the size, number and position of the required contact parts. The position accuracy of the hole needs to be controlled within 0.02mm, the diameter of the hole is equal to 2.05mm, the sealing diameter of the pin is 0.78mm, the thickness of the sealed glass wall is 0.635mm, and the thin wall length is 0. The height of the glass bead 2 needs to be greater than 7mm. The water pressure test shows that such a sealing distance can ensure a reliable longitudinal sealing strength of 70MPa. After sintering, the two ends of the thin-walled long glass bead 2 cannot be higher than the plane of the perforated part of the sealing shell (the reserved distance is 0.3mm-2mm). First, it prevents the thermal expansion and contraction of the shell from causing shear stress on the exposed plane to cause cracks on the glass surface. Second, it prevents the gas released by the shell between the glass beads during the sintering process, causing the shell surface at both ends of the hole to turn black and yellow. Third, it prevents the glass from flowing and protruding from the plane during the sintering process. The pin 1 in the socket assembly is a transfer pin, both ends of which are plug-in ends, and the material is one of iron-nickel alloy, iron-nickel-cobalt alloy or copper alloy.

[0040] Specifically, the aforementioned thin-walled long glass beads are sintered and prepared in the following manner.

[0041] S1. Reserve an assembly gap of 0.05 according to the size of the thin-walled long glass beads. After vitrification, the diameter of the thin-walled long glass beads is 2.00 mm, the inner hole is 0.83 mm, the wall thickness is 0.585 mm, and the height is 8 mm for the design of the preform mold; during pressing, scrape the filler multiple times, or use sieved fine powder for density pressing. When the glass wall thickness is less than 0.65 mm and the height-to-wall thickness ratio reaches more than 10, this process can be used.

[0042] S2. Gradually heat up to 330 °C in an exhaust furnace or a chain furnace for 2 hours and keep it warm for 4 hours. Complete clean debinding during the holding stage. Such a long-time debinding treatment is different from the conventional high-temperature debinding. The debinding process in this application can effectively avoid excessive shrinkage of the preform volume and initial softening of the glass surface, seal the outlet gaps for the air between the particles discharged during subsequent sintering, and homogenize the preform at the same time, which helps to form a uniform glass phase of the thin-walled long strip during the subsequent sintering process.

[0043] S3. After debinding is completed, place the material in a vacuum furnace for vitrification. To prevent the slender glass beads from skewing during vacuum vitrification, making it impossible to fit into the holes of the outer shell during subsequent pre-sintering assembly, it can be placed in a special tooling to avoid its deformation, such as a V-shaped fixture. Vacuum vitrification can further extract the gas brought in during the preparation of the thin-walled glass beads.

[0044] S4. After vacuum vitrification is completed, perform cleaning and drying, and it can be used as a fitting for the socket assembly.

[0045] Furthermore, when sintering the aforementioned socket assembly, the following method is used for sintering: A1. First, assemble the outer shell, thin-walled long glass beads, pins, and auxiliary sintering mold.

[0046] A2. Place the assembled body in a vacuum furnace, heat up to 160 °C after reaching the glass softening point, keep it warm for 10 minutes, and backfill with protective gas in vacuum before the sealing temperature. The backfill pressure is set to 0.017 - 0.018 MPa.

[0047] A3. After sintering is completed, perform demolding treatment, and then perform water washing and performance testing.

[0048] In this way, even during vacuum sintering, at a temperature higher than 160°C for 10 minutes, conventional vitrification popcorn-like ejection will not occur, and bubbles in the superficial structure of the glass blank will escape and be partially eliminated, so that the liquid glass can easily and continuously fill the sealing cavity, achieving the purpose of no air inclusion in the thin glass and metal infiltration process. Finally, argon gas is backfilled at 0.017~0.018MPa to prevent the volume of unexcluded bubbles from expanding with the temperature increase, causing the popping beads to eject from the sealing cavity, and at the same time, the filling glass is compacted. After DPA analysis after sintering, compared with the common bubble problem of conventional glass beads, under the same observation conditions, the socket assembly prepared in this embodiment has no obvious visible bubbles, which minimizes the volume of the cavities in the structure after sintering, achieves a denser combination with the titanium alloy, and meets the water pressure resistance and electrical performance requirements in deep water.

[0049] Furthermore, if there are black areas on the metal surface of the socket assembly after sintering in this embodiment, it can be polished by shot peening.

[0050] Furthermore, when the socket assembly in this embodiment is applied to the connector, it is applied in the form of a complete socket. Specifically for the complete socket, the mounting plate assembly is connected to the right end of the sintered assembly prepared by the aforementioned sintering method and fixed with a clamp ring. The end cover at the left end can be sealed with the socket assembly through two sealing rings, and has the function of dragging and bearing the sealing box. Two Haver fixing sleeves are buckled and locked with four screws. The seal between the tail straight tube and the outer shell in the socket assembly is sealed by two sealing rings, and the locking is achieved by a nut. A rotation-stopping structure is provided on the structure of the tail straight tube box socket assembly, and the end of the tail straight tube facing away from the socket assembly is clamped with a watertight cable.

[0051] Although the present invention has been described in detail with reference to the aforementioned embodiments, it is still possible for those skilled in the art to modify the technical solutions described in the aforementioned embodiments, or to make equivalent substitutions for some of the technical features therein. Any modifications, equivalent substitutions, improvements, etc. made within the spirit and principles of the present invention should be included in the protection scope of the present invention.

Claims

1. A method for sintering thin-walled long glass beads, characterized in that: The following steps are involved: S1. Construct a thin-walled long glass bead pressing mold; S2. Slowly raise the temperature to the binder removal temperature and keep it warm at the binder removal temperature. The insulation time should be at least twice the heating time. S3. After the debinding is completed, vacuum vitrification is performed to obtain thin-walled long glass beads.

2. A thin-walled long glass bead sintering method according to claim 1, characterized in that: In the step S1, the thin-walled long glass bead pressing mold is used to construct a thin-walled long glass bead with an inner hole, a wall thickness of less than 0.65 mm, and a height to wall thickness ratio of not less than 10.

3. A thin-walled long glass bead sintering method according to claim 1, characterized in that: In step S2, the debinding temperature is 330°C, and the temperature is raised to the debinding temperature within 2 hours, and the heat preservation time is 4 hours.

4. A connector socket assembly, characterized in that: A thin-walled long glass bead as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 3 and a housing having a sealing portion; A through hole for passing the plug pin is configured at the position of the sealing portion, and the thin-walled long glass bead is sintered and positioned between the inner wall of the through hole and the plug pin.

5. The connector socket assembly according to claim 4, characterized in that: The height of the thin-walled long glass bead is greater than 7 mm, and the distance between the two ends of the thin-walled long glass bead and the two ends of the through hole is 0.3-2 mm.

6. The connector socket assembly according to claim 4, characterized in that: The shell is one of a titanium alloy shell, a stainless steel shell or a copper alloy shell.

7. The connector socket assembly according to claim 4, characterized in that: The plug pin is a transfer plug pin with both ends being plug-in ends, and the plug pin is made of one of an iron-nickel alloy, an iron-nickel-cobalt alloy or a copper alloy.

8. A method for sintering a connector socket assembly according to any one of claims 4 to 7, characterized in that: After assembling the housing, the thin-walled long glass bead, the pin and the sintering mold, sintering is performed in a vacuum furnace; During sintering, the temperature is raised to an environment 160° C. higher than the softening point of the thin-walled long glass beads, and the temperature is kept for at least 10 minutes. Before the sealing temperature, vacuum backfilling with protective gas is performed.

9. The sintering method according to claim 8, characterized in that: The backfill pressure of the vacuum backfill protective gas is 0.017~0.018MPa.

10. A connector socket, characterized in that: The socket assembly comprises the socket assembly according to any one of claims 4 to 7, and the socket assembly is sintered by the sintering method according to any one of claims 8 to 9; One end of the socket assembly is connected with a mounting plate assembly, and the other end of the socket assembly is installed with an end cover.

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