Abstract: The campaign lives are extended and the risks of process gas leaks past seals are reduced by improved stave coolers that each hang together inside steel shelled furnaces by a single neck extended out through a steel jacketed collar. All the coolant circuits inside the stave cooler are collected and grouped together to pass inside through the one collar. The steel in the collar is matched to the steel used in the containment shell, and a matching steel weld seals them together. Thermal stresses are thereby prevented from accumulating over separation distances as a consequent of the steel's coefficient of expansion. A single point of penetration has no separation distance to another.

Abstract: Cast-iron and cast-copper stave coolers improve the campaign lives of furnaces with steel shelled vessels. Each stave cooler has a single rectangular body with one-only protruding neck on its back that includes a steel collar adaptor. All the coolant piping passes in a group through the protruding neck from two or more independent coolant circuits inside the stave body. Such stave coolers are configured to depend entirely for all their vertical mechanical support on a single hanging of the protruding neck as a through-bulkhead in a single corresponding penetration of the containment shell. Thus, a single annular welded steel-to-steel gas seal around the through-bulkhead is all that's needed inside the steel containment shell for each stave cooler. Coolant piping is laid flat in a single common layer, inside to a hot face. Cast-copper stave cooler hot faces include an abrasion resistant layer that extends campaign lives beyond ten years.

Abstract: Improved vertically orientated metal smelting or converting furnaces, in which at least a portion of its steel shelled vessel is cylindrical. At least one ringed row of horizontal coolers are fixed to the steel vessel shoulder-to-shoulder to form a lintel shelf that cantilevers inward. Such lintel shelf is above the bath zone of the furnace and fully supports a refractory brick lining and interdigitated horizontal coolers above. Below, in the bath zone, the weight of another lining of refractory brick is supported by the floor and the outside of the lining bears against several vertical bathline coolers. The advantage of the improvements include relieving the weight of the upper refractory brick lining and horizontal coolers from the lower bathline lining of refractory brick. Without having to bear such weight, the lower bathline lining of refractory brick can be safely allowed to corrode and thin beyond conventional minimums.

Abstract: A supporting frame and thin stave cooler for a metallurgical furnace comprises a metal structure fastened to the cold face of the thin stave cooler that adds strength and rigidity. The thin stave cooler itself is lightened, thinned, and simplified to take optimal advantage of the supporting frame and its provisions for mounting and attaching the thin stave cooler assembly to the inside walls of a furnace containment shell. Water is circulated in the thin stave cooler through feed and discharge piping connections that pass through the supporting frame and are sleeved by protection sleeves. The protection sleeves can serve as a primary or secondary support system when they are welded between the furnace containment shell and the supporting frame when first installed.

Abstract: A brick hearth system includes a rigid containment shell in which a concave bottom is lined with a hearth refractory sub-layer and hearth brick working layer. The outer perimeter of the hearth refractory is ringed with thrust blocks to compress the whole toward the center and to thereby deny gaps from forming between the separate bricks. Many individual thrust rods penetrate the outer bottom of the containment shell, and such are used to transmit compression forces generated outside the shell to be applied against the thrust blocks in unison. Each thrust rod receives an adjustable amount of inward force from a spring, acting either directly or through a beam or rocker arm. These are anchored to and use the hoop strength of the containment shell as leverage. As the hearth brick working layer grows during its service life, the ring of thrust blocks grows in diameter as well inside the margins provided within the containment shell.

Abstract: A brick hearth system comprises a rigid containment shell in which a concave bottom is lined with a hearth refractory sub-layer and hearth brick working layer. The outer perimeter of the hearth refractory is ringed with thrust blocks to compress the whole toward the center and to thereby deny gaps from forming between the separate bricks. Many individual thrust rods penetrate the outer bottom of the containment shell, and such are used to transmit compression forces generated outside the shell to be applied against the thrust blocks in unison. Each thrust rod receives an adjustable amount of inward force from a spring, acting either directly or through a beam or rocker arm. These are anchored to and use the hoop strength of the containment shell as leverage. As the hearth brick working layer grows during its service life, the ring of thrust blocks grows in diameter as well inside the margins provided within the containment shell.

Abstract: A cooling system comprises serpentine cooling fluid passages cast into a work piece with carefully controlled turning radii and profiles. Individual interdigitated baffles are contoured in the plane of coolant flow to have walls that thicken and then round off at their distal ends. The outside radii at these turns is similarly rounded and controlled such that the coolant flow will not be swirled into eddies.

Abstract: A supporting frame and thin stave cooler for a metallurgical furnace comprises a metal structure fastened to the cold face of the thin stave cooler that adds strength and rigidity. The thin stave cooler itself is lightened, thinned, and simplified to take optimal advantage of the supporting frame and its provisions for mounting and attaching the thin stave cooler assembly to the inside walls of a furnace containment shell. Water is circulated in the thin stave cooler through feed and discharge piping connections that pass through the supporting frame and are sleeved by protection sleeves. The protection sleeves can serve as a primary or secondary support system when they are welded between the furnace containment shell and the supporting frame when first installed.

Abstract: A cooling system comprises serpentine cooling fluid passages cast into a work piece with carefully controlled turning radii and profiles. Individual interdigitated baffles are contoured in the plane of coolant flow to have walls that thicken and then round off at their distal ends. The outside radii at these turns is similarly rounded and controlled such that the coolant flow will not be swirled into eddies.

Abstract: A brick hearth system comprises a rigid containment shell in which a concave bottom is lined with a hearth refractory sub-layer and hearth brick working layer. The outer perimeter of the hearth refractory is ringed with thrust blocks to compress the whole toward the center and to thereby deny gaps from forming between the separate bricks. Many individual thrust rods penetrate the outer bottom of the containment shell, and such are used to transmit compression forces generated outside the shell to be applied against the thrust blocks in unison. Each thrust rod receives an adjustable amount of inward force from a spring, acting either directly or through a beam or rocker arm. These are anchored to and use the hoop strength of the containment shell as leverage. As the hearth brick working layer grows during its service life, the ring of thrust blocks grows in diameter as well inside the margins provided within the containment shell.

Abstract: A brick hearth system comprises a rigid containment shell in which a concave bottom is lined with a hearth refractory sub-layer and hearth brick working layer. The outer perimeter of the hearth refractory is ringed with thrust blocks to compress the whole toward the center and to thereby deny gaps from forming between the separate bricks. Many individual thrust rods penetrate the outer bottom of the containment shell, and such are used to transmit compression forces generated outside the shell to be applied against the thrust blocks in unison. Each thrust rod receives an adjustable amount of inward force from a spring, acting either directly or through a beam or rocker arm. These are anchored to and use the hoop strength of the containment shell as leverage. As the hearth brick working layer grows during its service life, the ring of thrust blocks grows in diameter as well inside the margins provided within the containment shell.

Abstract: A furnace-cooling block comprises a UNS-type C71500 schedule-40 water pipe cast inside a pour of electrolytic copper UNS-type C11000 de-oxidized during the casting process, or melted in an inert environment, to produce a high-copper approximating UNS-type C81100. A resulting fusion of the pipe to the casting is such that the differential coefficient of expansions of the two copper alloys involved does not exceed the yield strength of the casting copper during operational thermal cycling. The melting point of the copper alloy used in the pipe is such that a relatively thin-wall pipe may be used with a sand packing during the melt.