Metal Science and Heat Treatment

gol. 38, Nos. 9 - 10, 1996

THERMAL-SHOP EQUIPMENT
UDC 621.783.246:66.096.5

ELECTRIC F U R N A C E S WITH A FLUIDIZED BED

FOR I M P L E M E N T I N G E N V I R O N M E N T A L L Y SAFE
HEAT T R E A T M E N T PROCESSES IN M A C H I N E BUILDING
A. P. Baskakov and E. M. F a i n s h m i d t
Translated fi'om Metallovedenie i Termicheskaya Obrabotka Metallov, No. 9, pp. 19 - 23, September, 1996.
Current designs of electric tank furnaces with a fluidized bed that provide environmentally safe heat treatment
of steels as tested under the conditions of machine-building plants are considered.

Some foreign finns are known to specialize in the production of furnaces with a fluidized bed either separately or
along with other equipment. Russian industry has not yet
started such production.
Several industrial and pilot furnaces (mainly induction
electric furnaces) have been manufactured in shops for nonstandard equipment for machine-building plants that use a
fluidized bed as a heating agent in heat treatment processes.
For example, five modifications of such furnaces have been
produced by the Nizhnii Tagii plant, and ! - 2 furnaces each
have been produced by the Nev'yansk, Chelyabinsk, and
Magnitogorsk plants. In all cases the heating agent used instead of molten metals, salts, caustic alkalis, saltpeters, and
mineral oils used in heat treatment practice in machine-building plants was a fluidized bed of a fine-grained material (predominantly white electrocomndum, which is an indifferent
environmentally safe medium).
In some nonstandard processes (in special technologies
or in the absence of natural gas) producers use molten lead
and KCI, NaCI, BaCI 2 salts as media for oxidation-free heating for hardening of structural and tool steels. Melts of KOH,
NaOH alkalis are used for isothermal cooling of steels; melts
of KNO 3 , NaNO 2 , NaNO 3 saltpeters are used for oxidationfree recrystallization annealing of copper alloys, heating for
hardening of Duralumin, high-temperarure tempering of
high-speed steels, and intermediate-temperature tempering of
spring materials; Vapor mineral oil with t = 150 - 180C (the
flash point exceeds 250C) is used for low-temperarure tempering of structural and tool steels.
All these chemicals contaminate the atmosphere of the
shop and the waste waters, because the shops performing the
mentioned processes (thermal, mechanical, machining) are
often separated from the plant's purification system, which is

overloaded with waste from the chemical, galvanizing, and

other shops. Thus, after washing parts heat treated in the
melts and oils mentioned above, waste waters containing K ,
Na , Ba ++, CI-, NO~, NO], OH- ions, metallic lead, aluminum, and zinc, and mineral oils pass directly into the sewage
system and then into the soil and the water basins. This situation is typical for machine-building plants in the Urals (see
Table 1).
The use of a neutral environmentally safe heating agent
prevents the appearance of the mentioned substances in the
waste and makes the atmosphere of the shops healthier.
The first attempts to use a fluidized bed as a universal
heating agent in heat treatment processes were made in the
1960s. At the present time some experience has been accumulated in the field of heat and mass exchange in fluidized
beds and fluidizing technology [1, 2, etc.]. A characteristic
feature o f a fluidized bed is its high effective thermal conductivity. Intense circulation of particles whose volume heat conduction exceeds that of gases by about three orders of magnirude provides almost equal temperatures (accurate to 5 10C) at all points of the bed even in large furnaces. If necessary, the accuracy can be increased to + 3C. Heating in a
fluidized bed is similar to that in molten salts and metals and
can be used at virtually any process temperature from room to
900C.
The coefficient of heat transfer ct between a fluidized
bed and the surface of a part immersed in it can exceed
1000 W/(m2. K). Such high values ofct at gas velocities constiruting a tenth of a meter per second are caused first of all
by the heat transferred by the solid particles of the finegrained material used as the fluidization material. Heating in
a fluidized bed is rapid; the heating rates in such a bed lie be-

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Electric Furnaces with a Fluldized Bed

387

tween those o f chloride melts and molten lead, and the medium is environmentally safe.
In principle, a fluidized bed can be heated by electricity
(at least to 700 - 900C) through the walls of a steel heat-resistant converter from resistance heaters placed along the
walls o f the refractory lining o f the shaft or by burning a gas,
for example, in immersed burners [1]. World experience
shows that gas furnaces have not found wide application in
machine building.
In a machine-building plant natural gas is supplied to a
few, usually specialized, shops (forge, heat-treatment, foundry). Choosing the concept o f electric heating o f a fluidized
bed we managed to design a number o f mobile tank electric
furnaces that can operate directly in flow lines o f mechanical
shops, which makes it possible to eliminate transportation of
parts into the heat-treatment department and back. The lower
volume o f intershop transportation makes the process less expensive and shortens the production cycle, making it more
rhythmic.
It has been difficult to develop a process and equipment
with a fluidized bed for low-oxidation recrystallization annealing o f parts maade o f copper and its alloys. In the range
o f annealing temperatures (400 - 550C) copper is intensely
oxidized in air, forming a dense oxide film that is hard to remove. Many parts have to be heated without oxidation, especially if their sizes are finished or in order to provide for a
high quality o f a deposited coating (for example, in tinning).
Previously, saltpeter melts were used for oxidation-free
recrystallization annealing o f copper and its alloys and
for heating parts made o f aluminum alloys for hardening (500
525C).
An alternative for oxidation-free heating in saltpeter was
indirect (through the walls o f a closed muffle) heating o f a
charge o f parts, but it did not provide uniform heating o f the
-

whole o f the charge; parts from different zones had different

levels o f ductility, microstructures, and other properties (at
the walls o f the muffle the parts were superheated, whereas in
the center, underheating caused a deformation texture and the
parts were rejected). In addition, the air left in the muffle oxidized the surface of the parts (to a dark-brown oxide film).
Direct heating o f a charge in a fluidized bed provides the
requisite uniformity o f the distribution o f the temperature,
properties, and microstructure. In order to eliminate the formation o f scale the fluidization was conducted using steam
for the first time in the practice o f a machine-building plant.
Steam played the role o f a fluidizing agent and, simultaneously, o f a medium protecting copper and its alloys from oxidation [3, 4]. Steam from the plant's system was fed into the
furnace at a temperature o f 100 - 110C and a pressure o f up
to 20 MPa. This method o f heating was low-oxidation. A thin
oxide film (colored from yellow to light-brown) was easily
removable by pickling before tinning with a loss o f mass up
to 0.01 g/cm 2 (in heating in a muffle the loss o f mass was up
to 0.03 g/cm2; in the absence o f a protective atmosphere it
was 0.1 - 0.12 g/era 2 for articles made o f M 1 copper sheets
after cold spinning).
The shaft electric furnace designed in order to implement
the process described has the following characterizes: a power
o f 80 kW, tm~ = 550C, an output o f 250 kg/h, a steam flow
rate o f 86m3/h, a length/width/height proportion o f
1730/1730/2700 mm, a functional space of 600/600/1500 ram, a
mass o f conmdum of 320 kg, and a total weight o f 7.7 tons.
The shaft tank electric furnace (Fig. 1) consists o f a heatresistant muffle 1 (with a square cross section) placed in a
shaft 2 with a heat-insulating refractory lining 3 and registahoe heaters 4. The square cross section provides maximum
charging. A steam-distributing nozzle 5 is mounted on the
bottom o f the muffle and its upper plate is equipped with caps

TABLE 1
No. of
process

Heating agent
Technology

1 Oxidation-free heating for hardening

2 The same
3* The same

Treated material

composition

Carbon and alloyed steels Molten NaCI + KCI

High-speed steels
Molten NaCI + BaCh
Alloy edateels
Molten lead

l,C

Presence of harmful
substances in waste waters
and the atmosphere

780 - 900 Na+, K+, CV, HCI vapor

1260 - 1280 Na, Ba''+, HCI vapor
800 - 850 Pb vapor, Pb in waste
waters

4* Rapid heating for high-temperature

The .same
tempering
5 High-temperaturetempering of cutting High-speedsteels
tools
6 Isothermalcooling(bainite quenching) Carbon and alloyed steels
7 Temperingof spring items
Spring steels
8 Low-temperaturetempering of items and Carbon and alloyed steels
tools
9 Oxidation-freerecrystallization annealing Copper-basealloys
I0
Chemicaloxidation of items and tools Structuraland tool steels
11 Hydrophobizationof parts in powder
Powdersteels
metallurgy
*Special technology.
**Hydrophcbizingsilioon-conminingliquid.

The

same

Molten KNO3 + NaNO3

650 - 680 The same

560

Na+, K+, NO~

Molten KON + NaOH

Molten NaNO-2 + NaNO3 + KNO3
Vaporoil (ttp= 260C)

320-400 Na+,K+,OH230 - 350 Na+, K+, NO~, NO~

160 - 180 Volatilehydrocarbons, oil.

Molten NaNO3 + KNO3

Solution of NaOH, NaNO2, NaNO3
GKZh-94,** gasoline

400-550 Na,K,NO~
130-135 Na+,OH-,NOT,NO~
20
Gasolinevapor, GKZh

tars

388

6. A dense bed of electrocorundum 7 (GOST 3647-71, particle size 120 I.tm) 600 mm high is poured onto the steam-distributing mesh. Steam is fed through nozzle 8 into the steamdistributing nozzle virtually under atmospheric pressure and
is filtered uniformly over a horizontal cross section of the
conveiter through the bed of corundum particles, fluidizing
the latter. The steam also serves as a protective atmosphere
that provides virtually oxidation-free heating of copper parts.
The fluidized bed is heated through the walls of the converter; the latter is heated, in turn, by radiation of the resistance electric heaters.
Due to intense mixing in the functional volume of the
fluidized bed the temperature becomes uniform (the temperature difference is 2 - 3C). The functional volume is situated
60 - 70 mm above the openings in the gas-distributing caps 6.
In the start-up period dried compressed air is fed from the
shop system in order to avoid condensation of steam on the
cold installation and moistening of the corundum, which
hampers normal fluidizing.
The furnace is equipped with a water tank 9 connected
with a tambour 10. The furnace, the tambour, and the tank
have a common cover 11 with a longitudinal groove for pulling a container with parts. Steam passes through the settling
zone (the space above the fluidized bed), is separated from
the eleetroeorundum particles, and is then sucked into a ventillation pump 13 through a longitudinal groove in the cover
11. An excess steam pressure is retained under the cover,
which creates a steam jacket in the tambour and above the
water tank. For this reason, parts moved into the water tank
hardly oxidize. The container with the parts is moved into the
furnace by a telpher, a vertical pull rod moves along the longitudinal groove in the cover, and the charge is immersed in
the fluidized bed when it reaches the end of the groove. The
container is mounted on a stationary support 14.
When the heating is finished, the charge is transported
with the help of the telpher into the water tank for 10 - 20 sec.
The cooling time of the charge is chosen so that the parts
withdrawn from the water have a temperature of 100- 150C,
at which excess moisture evaporates from their surface.
The mass of the charge is 100 - 120 kg, the heating to
the annealing temperature for each stack in the charge lasts
5 - 7 min, and the annealing lasts 40 min (with allowance for
the 30-min hold at 380-450C required by the specifications).
By increasing the heating temperature to 500 - 550C the
annealing time can be reduced to 1 5 - 20 min, but this can
be accompanied by growth of the grains to size No. 5 (at
t < 450C the grains correspond to size No. 7).
We used the same fluidizing technique in another technological process, namely, rapid steam oxidation of sintered
steels (instead of hydrophobization impregnation in GKZh94 and convective steam oxidation) [5]. In this case the second (technological) function of steam consists in oxidizing
iron and the impurities and filling the branched pore (capillary) system with this oxide phase. This increases substantially the corr_,~sionresistance of the sintered steels. For exam-

A . P . B a s k a k o v a n d E. M . F a i n s h m i d t

7:~1

Fig. 1. Shaft tank elecUic furnace with a fluidized bed for oxidation-free r~
crystallization annealing of parts made of copper and it3 alloys.

pie, corrosion spots appear on parts made of steel SP 50D2

after sintering (without closing the pores) in 1 - 2 h, after hydrophobization they appear in 12 h, after convective steam
oxidation they appear in 12 h, and after rapid steam oxidation
in a fluidized bed they appear in 48 h (in cyclic tests in a 3%
solution of NaCl at 18 - 25C).
The tank furnace for rapid steam oxidation differs from
the one described above by the absence of a water tank (the
charge of oxidized parts is cooled in still air) and preliminary
heating of steam to 3 0 0 - 350C [6]. Furnaces of both types
operate stably and reliably in several plants.
A universal tempering tank furnace with a bed fluidized
by compressed air from the plant's system, which is dried in
an oil and moisture separator, has been designed for all kinds
of tempering (low-, intermediate-, and high-temperature).
The air flow rate is 65 m3/h, and the rate of fluidizing is
0.2 m/sec. The functional space (a converter made of steel
KhI8NIOT) is 600 mm in diameter and 1900 mm high, and
the dense electrocorundum bed is 650 mm high. The furnace
operates in the 150- 650C temperature range, i.e., can be
used for isothermal cooling or can serve as a cooling (hardening) tank for martensitic hardening of alloy steels (with
switched-off heaters). The design of the furnace is described
in detail in [3, 4].
In our opinion, the problem of low-temperature heating
ofa fluidized bed (up to 700C) has been solved successfully,
which is confirmed by the reliable operation of the existi~lg

Electric Furnaces with a Fluldized Bed

389

Air

high-temperature tank furnace with induction heating (a cast

thick-wailed heat-resistant converter with a gas-distributing
mesh and a poured corundum bed placed in an inductor and
heated by current of industrial frequency) presented in Fig. 2
has shown good prospects for the method [3, 4].
We also believe that the experience of rapid nitriding in a
furnace with a vibrofluidized bed [7] is quite promising and
environmentally safe.
CONCLUSIONS
The developed industrial electric furnaces with a
fluidized bed (of three modifications) and semi-industrial furnaces (of two modifications) have been tested successfully
under industrial conditions and provide environmentally safe
heat treatment processes.
REFERENCES

Fig. 2. Shall tank electric furnace with induction heating of the fluidized
bed: / ) inductor;,2 ) monolithic lining (heat-resistantconcrete);3 ) converter;,
4 ) air-di~atbuting nozzle; 5 ) caps; 6 ) fluidized bed.

industrial furnaces designed as described above and providing environmentally safe heat treatment processes.
Laboratory and engineering developments exist for hightemperature (up to 900C or more) heating of the fluidized
bed. Some experimental designs have been tested (oxidationfree heating for hardening). We do not consider these designs
in the present paper, because the creation of production prototypes (if needed) will be accompanied by inevitable changes.
However, it should be noted that the experimental model of a

1. A. E Baskakov, Heating and Cooling Metals in a Fluidized Bed

[in Russian], Metallurgiya, Moscow (1974).
2. A.P. Baskakov, B. V. Berg, and A. F. Ryzhkov, Processes o f Heat
and Mass Transfer in a Fluidized Bed [in Russian], Metallurgiya,
Moscow (1978).
3. E. M. Fainshmidt, A. S. Zavarov, and Yu. B. Pirogov, Heat Treatment o f Machine Parts in a Fluidized Bed [in Russian], TsNIINTI, Moscow (1984).
4. A. S. Zavarov. A. P. Baskakov, S. V. Graehev, and E. M. Faiushmidt, "Use of a fluidized bed for heat and chemical heat treatment," Metalloved. Term. Obrab. Met., No. 10, 35 - 40 (1984).
5. USSR Inventor's Certificate 1321523, "A method for steam oxiclarion of sintered articles of iron powders," Byull. Otkryt. Izobret., No. 25 (1987).
6. E. M. Fainshmidt, T. A. Pumpyanskaya, and A. A. Shalamov,
Fabrication o f Powder Parts [in Russian], TsNIINTI (1986).
7. Patent 2007497 RF, "An installation for nitriding articles in a vibrofluidized bed," Byull. Otkryt. Izobret., No. 3 (1994).