Continuous furnace is one of the types of industrial heat treatment furnaces. This heating device is used to process materials at high temperatures. It uses a cast-link or mesh-link belt to transport process material to the primary heating chamber for quick thermal processing. Learn more about this furnace in the blog.
What is a Continuous Furnace?
A Continuous Furnace is one of many types of options you have for heat treatment processes. Even within the category of Continuous Furnaces, there is a lot of variance depending on the specifications you need and the design principles used by the Continuous Furnace manufacturers.
A Continuous Furnace features a tunnel structure and is divided into numerous regulated zones, such as preheating, binder burnout, heating, firing, and cooling. The furnace is designed for quick drying and curing of products and is an ideal solution for medium and high-volume production. These industrial furnaces also have rapid thermal responses and consistent, steady temperature distribution.
A typical continuous furnace contains:
- Pre-heating segment.
- Binder burnout portion
- Heating and firing sections
- Cooling section
Advantages of a Continuous Furnace
1.Large and convenient production rates
Continuous furnace systems may produce very high production rates in an indexed or continuous mode.
2. Energy Efficient
Continuous furnace systems are significantly more energy efficient than other heat treatment alternatives. They are highly efficient, whether you use gas or electric equipment.
3. Low Cost
Using a continuous furnace system results in the lowest cost per item, especially when compared to alternative heat treatment processes.
4. Versatility
They can be built to incorporate some or all activities, such as washing, quenching, carburizing, nitriding, neutral hardening, nitrocarburizing, cooling, tempering, storage, and loading/unloading.
5. Customizability
While you can buy conventional furnace systems, you can also have your own bespoke system designed for you based on the amount of space you have in your factory and the sort of application you’ll be utilizing the equipment for.
Types of continuous furnaces
As previously indicated, Continuous Furnaces are quite adaptable. This is due in part to the large number of continuous furnace choices available on the market. Here are a few instances.
1. Mesh belt
A mesh belt furnace produces heat treatment results that are easily reproducible, making it an ideal piece of equipment for treating bulk commodities and large quantities of tiny parts while reducing energy consumption and increasing production uptime.
2. Rotary hearth Furnaces
Rotary Hearth furnaces are intended for reheating pretreated workpieces and carburizing shallow case depths. They have a high throughput, making them particularly useful and appropriate for processing large amounts of the same item.
3. Endothermic generators
Endothermic generators have a modular construction and may be purchased in a variety of sizes based on your heat treatment requirements. The generator comes preconfigured with programs for your convenience, making it a simple option to use.
4. Pusher furnaces
Pusher Furnaces are perfect for the continuous processing of items in a safe gas environment. The furnace’s hearth construction is exceedingly solid and robust, allowing it to withstand exceptionally heavy loads.
How do continuous furnaces work?
Continuous Furnaces are often more complicated than batch furnaces. In a Continuous Furnace, the things move at a consistent speed. There is no need for racks or baskets, therefore, overall energy consumption is lower than in batch furnaces.
The lack of baskets and racks also means that each item is heated individually as it moves through the furnace. The continuous process may additionally include heated zones and a cooling area at the end of the chamber. Cooling durations can be decreased since the components are spaced apart and have a smaller total thermal mass.
Final Thoughts
Vibrant Thermal Private Limited is one of the leading Continuous Furnace Manufacturers, offering a variety of continuous and batch furnaces to meet any purpose.
