Annealing Furnace

[Gustavo Silvano]

Hello there!

My name is Gustavo, and I'm from Brazil, where I'm working as an Industrial Engineer in a steelmill plant. Here we are starting to run a new process, the annealing furnace, where we use (obviously) a furnance to change the material composition of the steel. The problem that we're having is that the furnance full capacity is over 10,000 kg, but we currently can achieve around 6,000 kg. This is due to the fact that the stockers that we're using have a base that is too big, and in do not fit correclty on the furnance. With we try to load it with more than 10 stockers, one will go up to the other, and to take it out will be very difficult and dangerous.

So I want to know if anyone has an experience with this kind of furnance and that can help us with a solution. It can be a change on our process or the use of another type of stocker.

My idea is to cover the gaps that we can see on it (picture attached), using a stainless steel expanded sheet, so that we can cut the base of the stockers and more will fit together. We don't do this now, because with the base smaller, the foot of the base can enter on the gap making the stocker tumble.
But if I cover the gaps (with an expanded sheet of stainless steel) will it influence a lot on the convection of the furnance?

What do you think?

Best Regards

Gustavo

 

[Lyrl]

if I cover the gaps... will it influence a lot on the convection of the furnance?

Yes. My previous employer re-bricked one of their furnaces incorrectly and had thousands of pounds of wrong-hardness parts after.

Do you have a way to survey temperature in the furnace? If you can attached thermocouples to sample locations (usually 3 around the top, 3 around the bottom, and 1 near the center), you could run one cycle with the gaps fully open and one with the expanded sheet. The temperature record would tell you if the change was safe.