Information a Furnace Designer Needs to Know

In selecting materials for a furnace—new, rebuild, or maintenance—a furnace designer needs to know  

Temperature range required in production, including significant fluctuations and their intervals 

Operating schedule—continuous or intermittent. Scheduled downtimes for maintenance, vacations, other 

Industrial Furnaces, Sixth EcUtion. W. Trinks, M. H. Mawhinney, R. A. Shannon, R. J. Reed and J. R. Garvey Copyright 2004 John Wiley Sons, Inc. 

Firebrick was the dominant furnace material from about 5000 bc to the 1950s. Many years ago, man discovered that tufa (calcareous sinter, or solidified bubbled lava) is an excellent insulating material for high-temperature furnaces (maybe as in this book s frontispiece). Modern insulating firebrick is a manmade equivalent of tufa. 

---