Hearths

Hearth incinerators. This type of incinerator is designed primarily to incinerate solid waste. Solids are moved through the combustion chamber mechanically using a rake. 

Before this treatment, the cassiterite content of the ore is increased by removing impurities such as clay, by washing and by roasting which drives off oxides of arsenic and sulphur. The crude tin obtained is often contaminated with iron and other metals. It is, therefore, remelted on an inclined hearth the easily fusible tin melts away, leaving behind the less fusible impurities. The molten tin is finally stirred to bring it into intimate contact with air. Any remaining metal impurities are thereby oxidised to form a scum tin dross ) on the surface and this can be skimmed off Very pure tin can be obtained by zone refining. 

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The first gas producer making low heat-value gas was built in 1832. (The product was a combustible carbon monoxide—hydrogen mixture containing ca 50 vol % nitrogen). The open-hearth or Siemens-Martin process, built in 1861 for pig iron refining, increased low heat-value gas use (see Iron). The use of producer gas as a fuel for heating furnaces continued to increase until the turn of the century when natural gas began to supplant manufactured fuel gas (see Furnaces, fuel-fired). 

The original process of heating coal in rounded heaps, the hearth process, remained the principal method of coke production for over a century, although an improved oven in the form of a beehive was developed in the Durham-Newcastie area of England in about 1759 (2,26,28). These processes lacked the capabiHty to collect the volatile products, both Hquids and gases. It was not until the mid-nineteenth century, with the introduction of indirectiy heated slot ovens, that it became possible to collect the Hquid and gaseous products for further use. 

Refractory Linings. The refractory linings (2,3) for the hearth and lower wads of furnaces designed for melting ferrous materials may be acidic, basic, or neutral (see Refractories). Sdica has been widely used in the past, and is stid being used in a number of iron and steel foundries. Alumina, a neutral refractory, is normally used for furnace roofs and in the wads for iron foundries, but basic brick can also be used in roofs (4). 

A typical large three-phase ferroalloy furnace using prebaked carbon electrodes is shown in Eigure 4. The hearth and lower walls where molten materials come in contact with refractories are usually composed of carbon blocks backed by safety courses of brick. In the upper section, where the refractories are not exposed to the higher temperatures, superduty or regular firebrick may be used. The walls of the shell also may be water-cooled for extended life. Usually, the furnace shell is elevated and supported on beams or on concrete piers to allow ventilation of the bottom. When normal ventilation is insufficient, blowers are added to remove the heat more rapidly. The shell also may rest on a turntable so that it can be oscillated slightly more than 120° at a speed equivalent to 0.25—1 revolution per day in order to equalize refractory erosion or bottom buildup. 

Hearth. The induction melting coil is almost always round and in the form of a right cylinder. It is highly desirable that the refractory lining within the coil be uniform in thickness, so most hearths are cylindrical whether they hold a few kg or 59 t. There are a few instances of a smaller coil being attached to the bottom of a larger hearth, so the hearth could be modified to suit a particular requirement (10). Oval cods have been budt and operated satisfactordy, but they are rare. 

The term channel induction furnace is appHed to those in which the energy for the process is produced in a channel of molten metal that forms the secondary circuit of an iron core transformer. The primary circuit consists of a copper cod which also encircles the core. This arrangement is quite similar to that used in a utdity transformer. Metal is heated within the loop by the passage of electric current and circulates to the hearth above to overcome the thermal losses of the furnace and provide power to melt additional metal as it is added. Figure 9 illustrates the simplest configuration of a single-channel induction melting furnace. Multiple inductors are also used for appHcations where additional power is required or increased rehabdity is necessary for continuous operation (11). 

Metal contained in the channel is subjected to forces that result from the interaction between the electromagnetic field and the electric current in the channel. These inward forces produce a circulation that is generally perpendicular to the length of the channel. It has been found that shaping the channels of a twin coil inductor shown in Figure 10 produces a longitudinal flow within the channel and significantly reduces the temperature difference between the channel and the hearth (12). 

Hearth. The hearth of a channel induction furnace must be designed to satisfy restraints that are imposed by the operating inductor, ie, the inductor channels must be full of metal when power is required, and it is also necessary to provide a sufficient level of metal above the channels to overcome the inward electromagnetic pressure on the metal in the channel when power is appHed. Once these requirements are satisfied, the hearth can then be tailored to the specific appHcation (13). Sizes range from stationary furnaces hoi ding a few hundred kilograms of aluminum to rotating dmm furnaces with a useful capacity of 1500 t of Hquid iron. 

The refractory used to constmct the hearth can be in the form of bricks, preformed shapes, or monolithic. Often a furnace design utilizes all three. Openings or passageways through the walls are fashioned in the same manner as windows in a brick building. 

Medium-sized loads are often processed ia a beU furnace, as shown ia Figure 2. The operation of this furnace is opposite to that of an elevator furnace the work load is placed on a stationary hearth and the furnace is lowered over the hearth. BeU furnaces are often arranged with two or more bases (hearths) which permit more efficient use of the furnace because one base can be unloaded/loaded as the furnace carries out a heating cycle on another base. 

Small loads are commonly processed in a box furnace. The product is placed on the furnace hearth through a door. Box furnaces may be single-ended or double-ended. A single-ended box furnace is usually used in an air atmosphere appHcation where the product can be removed hot from the furnace for cooling. A double-ended box furnace is usually used in a controlled atmosphere appHcation. In this case a water cooler is attached to one end. The product can be placed on the hearth (in the heat chamber) through the front door, then after the product reaches temperature, it is manually transferred into the water cooler for cooling before it is manually removed out the exit door on the other end of the water cooler. 

In pusher furnaces, the product (work load) is pushed through the furnace in steps by a hydrauhc or electromechanical mechanism that pushes each load into the furnace, thus pushing all work in the furnace ahead one work space. The walking-beam furnace lifts the work load on a walking beam, advances the load a step, and returns the work to the hearth. The walking beam then returns to its original position (under the hearth) in preparation for the next step. 

Another design, shown ia Figure 5, functions similarly but all components are iaside the furnace. An internal fan moves air (or a protective atmosphere) down past the heating elements located between the sidewalls and baffle, under the hearth, up past the work and back iato the fan suction. Depending on the specific application, the flow direction may be reversed if a propeUer-type fan is used. This design eliminates floorspace requirements and eliminates added heat losses of the external system but requires careful design to prevent radiant heat transfer to the work. 

At temperatures above 1150°C, alloys used for the hearth or material handling systems in low and medium temperature furnaces lose strength rapidly (2) and temperatures are reached where ceramic refractories are required to support the work. This results in less use of roUer-hearth and belt-type hearths and greater use of pushers or walking-beam designs for continuous furnaces. 

Mu/tihearth Furnace. Multihearth furnaces are most often used for incineration of municipal and industrial sludges, and for generation and reactivation of char. The main components of the multihearth are a refractory-lined shell, a central rotating shaft, a series of soHd flat hearths, a series of rabble arms having teeth for each hearth, an afterburner (possibly above the top hearth), an exhaust blower, fuel burners, an ash removal system, and a feed system. 

The feed is normally introduced to the top hearth where the rabble arms and teeth attached to the central shaft rotate and spiral soflds across the hearth to the center, where an opening is provided and the soflds drop to the next hearth. The teeth of the rabble arms on the hearth spiral the soflds toward the outside to ports that let the soflds drop down to the next hearth. Soflds continue downward, traversing each hearth until they reach the bottom and the ash is discharged. The primary advantage of this system is the long residence time in the furnace controlled by the speed of the central shaft and pitch of the teeth. 

Burners and combustion air ports are located in the walls of the furnace to introduce either heat or air where needed. The air path is countercurrent to the sohds, flowing up from the bottom and across each hearth. The top hearth operates at 310—540°C and dries the feed material. The middle hearths, at 760—980°C, provide the combustion of the waste, whereas the bottom hearth cools the ash and preheats the air. If the gas leaving the top hearth is odorous or detrimental to the environment, afterburning is required. The moving parts in such a system are exposed to high temperatures. The hoUow central shaft is cooled by passing combustion air through it. 

The furnace (Fig. 2) maybe divided into four zones (from bottom to top). (/) Hearth and raceway as the coke descends through the furnace, it is heated by the ascending gases to about 1370°C. When it reaches the raceway in front of the tuyeres, it reacts immediately with the oxygen in the hot blast air. Equation 1, however, is actually the combination of coke combustion (eq. 6) and coke gasification (eq. 7, also referred to as solution loss). 

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