Cooling methods arc furnaces

Smaller arc furnaces may be adequately cooled by circulation of air over structural elements of the shell and roof, but larger installations require intensive forced cooling to maintain the structure within safe operating limits.The furnace shell and roof may be cooled either by water circulated through pipes which form a panel, or by water sprayed on the panel elements.Tubular panels may be replaced when they become cracked or reach their thermal stress life cycle.Spray cooling is the most economical and is the highest efficiency cooling method.A spray cooling piece of equipment can be relined almost endlessly; equipment that lasts 20 years is the norm.However while a tubular leak is immediately noticed in an operating furnace due to the pressure loss alarms on the panels, at this time there exists no immediate way of detecting a very small volume spray cooling leak.These typically hide behind slag coverage and can hydrate the refractory in the hearth leading to a break out of molten metal or in the worst case a steam explosion.

Plasma arc furnace 

A plasma arc furnace (PAF) uses plasma  torches instead of graphite electrodes. Each of these torches has a casing with a nozzle and axial tubing for feeding a plasma-forming gas (either nitrogen or argon) and a burnable cylindrical graphite electrode within the tubing. Such furnaces can be called "PAM" (Plasma Arc Melt) furnaces; they are used extensively in the titanium-melting industry and similar specialty metal industries.

Vacuum arc remelting

Vacuum arc remelting (VAR) is a secondary remelting process for vacuum refining and manufacturing of ingots with improved chemical and mechanical homogeneity.In critical military and commercial aerospace applications, material engineers commonly specify VIM-VAR steels.VIM means Vacuum Induction Melted and VAR means Vacuum Arc Remelted.VIM-VAR steels become bearings for jet engines, rotor shafts for military helicopters, flap actuators for fighter jets, gears in jet or helicopter transmissions, mounts or fasteners for jet engines, jet tail hooks and other demanding applications.Most grades of steel are melted once and are then cast or teemed into a solid form prior to extensive forging or rolling to a metallurgically-sound form. In contrast,VIM-VAR steels go through two more highly purifying melts under vacuum.After melting in an electric arc furnace and alloying in an argon oxygen decarburization vessel, steels destined for vacuum remelting are cast into ingot molds.The solidified ingots then head for a vacuum induction melting furnace.This vacuum remelting process rids the steel of inclusions and unwanted gases while optimizing the chemical composition.The VIM operation returns these solid ingots to the molten state in the contaminant-free void of a vacuum. This tightly controlled melt often requires up to 24 hours.Still enveloped by the vacuum, the hot metal flows from the VIM furnace crucible into giant electrode molds. A typical electrode is about 15 feet (5 m) tall and will be in various diameters.The electrodes solidify under vacuum.For VIM-VAR steels, the surface of the cooled electrodes must be ground to remove surface irregularities and impurities before the next vacuum remelt.Then the ground electrode is placed in a VAR furnace.In a VAR furnace, the steel gradually melts drop-by-drop in the vacuum-sealed chamber.Vacuum arc remelting further removes lingering inclusions to provide superior steel cleanliness and remove gases like oxygen, nitrogen and hydrogen.Controlling the rate at which these droplets form and solidify ensures a consistency of chemistry and microstructure throughout the entire VIM-VAR ingot, making the steel more resistant to fracture or fatigue.This refinement process is essential to meet the performance characteristics of parts like a helicopter rotor shaft, a flap actuator on a military jet, or a bearing in a jet engine.

For some commercial or military applications, steel alloys may go through only one vacuum remelt, namely the VAR.For example, steels for solid rocket cases, landing gears, or torsion bars for fighting vehicles typically involve one vacuum remelt.Vacuum arc remelting is also used in production of titanium and other metals which are reactive or in which high purity is required.