Case Study of Air Cooled Electromagnetic Stirred Melting Furnace at Hydro Henderson

Abstract

Furnace circulation is well accepted throughout the aluminum industry to maximize productivity while minimizing energy and dross generation. New furnace installations are typically fitted with some form of circulation technology; however, there are many older furnaces that rely on mechanical stirring with a fork truck which is inefficient and can cause significant damage to refractories. While the capital costs of retrofitting a circulation device to an existing furnace can be significant, the return on investment can be relatively quick. The SIBERFORCE® electromagnetic stirrer supplied by ALTEK is an air cooled device that has been developed to overcome the negative aspects of traditional EMS devices such as high power consumption and the maintenance of water cooled copper tubes. This paper details the retrofit of a SIBERFORCE® system to the bottom of a melting furnace at Hydro Henderson. This paper will review the work required during installation as well as the results of performance testing that benchmarked improvements in melt rate, specific energy consumption and dross generation.