摘要 |
For recovery of heat, aggregates of metallic articles through which gas can flow are carried in a succession of baskets through a preheat zone, a treatment zone and a cooling zone of a heat treatment furnace and a heat transfer gas is constrained to flow vertically through the baskets in succession, beginning with the basket farthest advanced through the furnace, so far as concerns the basket in the cooling and preheat zone, the baskets having bottoms through which the gas can flow into or out of the aggregates. The heat transfer gas flows directly from the cooling zone. This may be done through the treatment zone where it may pick up additional heat. Heat may be removed from the heat transfer gas in a return circulation path outside the furnace. When the path of the basket is horizontal through the preheat and cooling zones, the flow of heat transfer gas is in transverse countercurrent to the advancement of the work, but if vertical transport of baskets is provided in the preheat and cooling zones, simple countercurrent operation can be provided with vertical flow through the baskets and aggregates. The ratio of heat capacity flow of the work to that of the heat transfer gas in the cooling and/or preheat zones is controlled to keep these heat capacity flows approximately equal and the preheat and cooling zones are so designed that the thermal exchange coefficient epsilon between the work and the heat transfer gas is consistently greater than 0.5.
|