Modular electric reducing furnace

摘要

In exactly the same manner as larger furnaces, electric reducing furnaces which can be used for test purposes during ferroalloy and nonferrous processes and in a simplified design as industrial submerged arc furnaces require complete engineering, and in this context the engineering costs turn out to be disproportionate since, instead of decreasing with the furnace size, they largely represent a type of fixed cost. Modifications to existing furnaces, be they large or small, are also very costly and complicated. Furnaces that have already been erected can be mechanically adapted and/or modified only with great difficulty. In order to develop a smaller, flexible reducing furnace which makes it possible to provide reducing furnaces which are inexpensive to design and nevertheless can be adapted in a process-specific manner for test operation and/or in a simplified design for corresponding industrial use, the invention proposes designing the electric reducing furnace (1) without a welded steel structure and from modules which can be exchanged as desired, in such a way that it can be completely disassembled, and proposes using individual modules and/or a plurality of modules having different dimensions and materials to make it possible to individually vary the dimensions and the structure of the electric reducing furnace (1) in terms of the furnace vessel (2), the side walls (3), the base (4), the cover (5) and the arrangement of the electrodes (6).