Reducing fuel consumption in furnace operations

Author:

Mr. Srikar Shenoy (View Profile)
Assistant Director
Steel Plant Specialities (SPS)

Executive Summary

Hot rolling involves plastic deformation of heated metals and alloys into flat products ( plates) or long products (wire rods, angles, channels, I-sections, TMT bars, etc.). Some of the hot rolled products are heat treated.

Hot forging is a similar process of heating ingots or billets and forming them into automotive or engineering parts. Most of the forged parts are heat treated.

The heat treatment industry uses various types of furnaces like sealed quench furnaces, continuous carburising furnaces, hardening and tempering furnaces, annealing furnaces etc. The refractory lining in many of these furnaces is made up of alumina bricks.

In these important metal forming operations, refractory and fuel for the reheating furnaces and heat treatment furnaces are the major cost centres. Any process or technique to reduce costs of fuel and refractory brick lining will automatically improve the profitability of the hot forming organisation

This article introduces a practical method of achieving these results. The technique is popularly used in hot rolling, hot forging and heat treatment industries. Benefits consistently achieved by the use of this technique are:

• Reduced fuel consumption due to increased emissivity of heat
• Increased refractory lining life and reduced furnace downtime
• Increased uniformity of heat within furnace

A number of successful industrial case studies with photos are presented in the technical article. In many of these cases:

• Return on Investment (ROI) was one month only!
• Refractory lining life was increased by up to 75%.
• Furnace outer shell temperature was reduced by 15 to 20 deg. C., indicating substantial fuel savings and better heating within the furnace.

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The technique is not capital-intensive and can be implemented in furnaces of all types of organisations, big and small. Please download the complete article to read more. For further details and to check feasibility of this technique in your Plant, please contact:

 

Srikar Shenoy
Director

Steel Plant Specialities LLP
211 Raikar Chambers
Govandi East
Mumbai-400088. India.
Tel: 91-22-6797 8060 / 91-22-2555 2459
Mobile: 98204 93373
Email: info@steelplantspecialities.com
Website: www.steelplantspecialities.com