Melting furnace for producing strand-cast ingots in a protective gas atmosphere

摘要

Melting furnace (1) for the production of strand-cast ingots (17, 18) in a protective gas atmosphere, has a charging apparatus (8) for feeding starting material (11) into a melting area (14). Within a melting chamber provided with a chamber floor (2d) and at least one energy source (4,5) there is situated a strand-casting mold (15) for the transformation of the melt to an ingot (17, 18) and underneath the strand-casting mold is disposed an offbearing apparatus (25) for offbearing the ingot, and an offbearing chamber enveloping the ingot and the offbearing apparatus. To solve the problem of operating such a melting furnace virtually continuously, the strand-casting mold (15) together with at least one additional strand-casting mold (16) is disposed in the chamber flow (2d) in such a manner that each of the strand-casting molds (15, 16) can be brought into the drop path of the melt by a preferably horizontal relative movement. Furthermore, one offbearing apparatus (25, 26) and one offbearing chamber (23, 24) are associated with each strand-casting mold, and at least one vacuum valve (19, 20) is disposed between each strand-casting mold (15, 16) and the offbearing chamber (23, 24) associated with it. Preferably the strand-casting molds (15, 16) are disposed in a chamber floor (2d) configured as a turning disk.