Reignite Your Steel Process with an Efficient Forge Furnace Design
American forgers are adapting to major changes in today’s world as they grapple with material shortages, mass reshoring, never ending advancements in technology, and new operational safety regulations.
With the high demand steel forges are facing, any increase in efficiency can give your business an edge. Based on our engineering models, our new forge furnace is expected to be roughly 90% more efficient than our customer’s existing furnace.
In this three-part series on building ultra-efficient forge furnace design, we advise you on:
How your forging operations go into considering the forge structure and styles (Chapter 1: this article)
Considerations for optimizing your combustion design (Chapter 3)
Chapter 1: How to Determine the Structure and Style of Your Forge Furnace
If your furnace is constricting your overall forging operations, it may be time to consider adding a new forge and heat treat furnace or retrofitting an old one to maximize throughput on your product line.
Either way, your furnace should be configured to optimize efficiency based on your specific production requirements. There are a ton of considerations to weigh in when you embark on a new furnace build or retrofit, so it’s important to have a 360-view of your requirements and constraints.
Making Your Process Key to Forge Furnace Design
A smart forge furnace design can increase your profitability while helping you reduce production backlogs. Whether you’re designing a new furnace or retrofitting an existing furnace, you’ll want to start by assessing your current operation and long-term production objectives. The more comprehensive your assessment, the better. Here are some of the top things to consider:
Define the number of parts you want to process in what amount of time
Identify the type of materials you’ll be heating up
Determine the shape and weight of your biggest, heaviest pieces
Specify the highest temperature you need to get them to
By answering these questions well in advance of your design project, your furnace design engineer will be able to determine the best method for your process to heat up your parts as uniformly and quickly as possible.
What Factors Influence the Structure and Style of Your Forge Furnace
If you’re retrofitting, then the style and structure of your furnace might be somewhat constrained. But if you’re building new, you will first want to evaluate different options for opening and closing your furnace. Some of the common styles we use include:
A tip-up furnace where the entire roof of the furnace hinges open
A lift-off hood where a crane pulls the top shell off and sets it aside to put steel in and take it back out
A box-style furnace with a traditional hinging door
3D Model of a Tip-Up Forge Furnace with the Car Out
Next, you’ll want to specify the size parameters to rough out the dimensions of your furnace, both inside and outside. You need to know how much floor space you have at your furnace construction site in proximity to your other equipment and what your production flow looks like. Inside the furnace, you need to consider the size of your steel ingots as well as the car that carries the parts and the device you use to put parts onto the car and take them back off.
From the shape of the furnace to the refractory design and combustion system, hundreds of factors play into whether or not the furnace will increase your profitability.
Make Things Better in Your Forging Operations with Our Technical Expertise
The steel production process has a wide range of variables that are further compounded by an even bigger range of variables when it comes to designing a furnace.
If you’re looking to build or retrofit a furnace for a heat-intensive industry to support the demands of your growing customer base, make sure you source a furnace builder with the technical engineering expertise in order to end up with an optimal outcome.
Looking to Reignite Your Forge Furnace in 2023?
Call us at (814) 838-9638 for budgetary numbers to help with planning for next year.