The walking hearth furnace is designed to heat cold product from the billet
yard and hot product from the caster. It is ideal for applications for lower
production rates and smaller product sizes.
The product is transported through the furnace via a series of walking cycles -
lift, traverse, lower, and return. The product sits on a refractory hearth
containing a combination of moveable and stationary sections. The walking
mechanism can utilize a wheel and ramp design or a bell crank mechanism depending
on the mill requirements.
The furnace requires very little water resulting in low fuel consumption.
Lower fuel consumption allows for lower fuel input resulting in lower exhaust emissions.
The furnace is top fired, an along with spaces (created by the walking cycles),
provide three sided heating for excellent product temperature uniformity.
Top firing the furnace also results in a shallow foundation reducing foundation
costs.
Overall furnace operations significantly improve with state of the art computer
controls including product tracking, delay management strategies, and level 2 thermal
modeling.