Continuous furnace for firing ceramic articles

摘要

A continuous electric tunnel furnace includes a tunnel through which articles to be fired are passed in a direction of feed. The tunnel has a length portion constituting a sintering zone. Nitrogen is introduced into the tunnel at the outlet thereof. The nitrogen stream is oriented against the direction of feed. There is further provided a gate projecting from the tunnel roof into the tunnel in the sintering zone in an orientation transverse to the direction of feed. The gate has opposite lateral bounding edges which are spaced from respective side walls of the tunnel.