Abstract: Apparatus for charging a shaft furnace for calcining and sintering material in lump form, such as limestone, dolomite, magnesite or the like, with granular bulk material, with a charging silo arranged above the furnace shaft having a substantially circular cross-section with a substantially homogeneously mixed bulk material and a charging bunker outlet for supplying the bulk material onto the surface of the bulk material column to be covered in the furnace shaft in a distribution controllable over the shaft diameter, characterized by a substantially circular plate arranged in spaced manner below the charging bunker outlet and whose diameter is smaller than the internal diameter of the furnace shaft and larger than the diameter of the opening of the charging bunker outlet and a rotary ring box or the like concentric to the plate and to which is fitted a plurality of strippers which penetrate the sloping bulk material in the plate and with each of the strippers is associated in fixed manner one of the guide chu

Abstract: A method and improved kiln for calcining and sintering of lumpy materials which includes an arrangement for creating a cavity in the material being processed adjacent each burner units so that a solid fuel can be applied on a cavity surface of the material at each burner.

Abstract: A process for burning and sintering material in lump form in a shaft furnace in which part of the cooling air flowing in a counterflow through the cooling zone is removed from the shaft furnace before the upper end of the cooling zone and is introduced into the column of material in the burning zone area, accompanied by a mixture of air and fuel. As a result a reducing furnace atmosphere is obtained, which extends up to the plane of the upper combustion chambers. The invention also relates to an annular shaft furnace for performing this process.

Abstract: An apparatus for charging a shaft furnace for burning and sintering materials in lump form includes a distribution column and a plurality of distribution flaps which are mounted for pivotal movement adjacent a lower cone edge of the cone and are movable by a link arrangement between different positions to form different truncated columns which are coaxial with the distribution cone and have different diameters. To control the flow and charging of material, each of the distribution flaps preferably have a deflector plate which is secured to the flap and the spaced arrangement adjacent its end.

Abstract: A shaft furnace for burning or firing and sintering material, such as limestone, dolomite, etc in lump or pellet form, in which the cooling air is introduced into the external cooling air duct in the vicinity of the furnace bottom, flows upwardly through duct the air duct and downwards through an internal cooling air duct and then passes from an air outlet of internal cooling air duct positioned in the vicinity of the furnace bottom into a first bustle pipe or the like surrounding the shaft furnace. A combustion air duct is supplied with combustion air from a first bustle pipe. A fuel gas supply line runs within the external cooling air duct.