An apparatus for loading/unloading workpieces, including a furnace heating a workpiece, and a robot loading and/or unloading a workpiece into/from the furnace. The robot may include a manipulator linkage and a fork at an end of the manipulator linkage. The fork may have an upper side on which a workpiece is placed while being loaded into and/or unloaded from the furnace. The fork may include a parallel arrangement of fork elements, each fork element in the fork having a length and rectangular cross section perpendicular to the length. Each fork element may have a workpiece carrying surface on which a workpiece is placed and an opposite surface to the workpiece carrying surface. The fork element may include a heat insulator disposed on the workpiece carrying surface at least over an area where a workpiece is placed to equalize longitudinal thermal expansions in the workpiece carrying surface and the opposite surface.

An apparatus for loading/unloading workpieces, including a furnace heating a workpiece, and a robot loading and/or unloading a workpiece into/from the furnace. The robot may include a manipulator linkage and a fork at an end of the manipulator linkage. The fork may have an upper side on which a workpiece is placed while being loaded into and/or unloaded from the furnace. The fork may include a parallel arrangement of fork elements, each fork element in the fork having a length and rectangular cross section perpendicular to the length. Each fork element may have a workpiece carrying surface on which a workpiece is placed and an opposite surface to the workpiece carrying surface. The fork element may include a heat insulator disposed on the workpiece carrying surface at least over an area where a workpiece is placed to equalize longitudinal thermal expansions in the workpiece carrying surface and the opposite surface.

A process chamber includes one or more vertical walls at least partially defining a chamber portion of the process chamber, and multiple zones located about a periphery of the one or more vertical walls, wherein one or more of the multiple zones extends from a top to a bottom of the one or more vertical walls. The process chamber further includes a plurality of temperature control devices, each thermally coupled to the one or more vertical walls in one of the multiple zones, and a controller coupled to the plurality of temperature control devices and configured to set temperatures of one or more of the plurality of temperature control devices to obtain temperature uniformity within 2% across a substrate located in the chamber portion.

A vortex injection system for a metal recycling furnace a delacquering chamber and a melt chamber, and a molten metal flow channel running through each chamber. The system diverts a portion of the molten metal flow through a vortex bowl, after which that portion of the molten metal flow is then returned to the main molten metal flow. The vortex bowl has an insertion port through which scrap metal and other materials may be controllably injected into the molten metal flow.

A carbon baking furnace has at least one vertical baking shaft with a system and method for positioning green carbon bodies to be baked at the top of the vertical baking path and ringing the green carbon bodies with a sacrificial medium such as packing coke. The disclosure provides a system and method for controlling the delivery and removal of the sacrificial medium used to surround the carbon bodies within the baking paths. A volatile extraction system and method are provided. A system and method for unloading baked carbon bodies is disclosed.

In an embodiment, an apparatus comprising: a heater configured to heat a wafer located on a wafer staging area of the heater, the heater comprising a heater shaft extending below the wafer staging area; and a heater lift assembly comprising: a lift shaft configured to move the heater shaft in a vertical direction; a clamp that connects the heater shaft to the lift shaft; and a damper disposed on top of the clamp.

A material feeding apparatus is disclosed. An apparatus for removing a surface oxide of a metal material and feeding the metal material to a melting furnace, according to an embodiment of the present disclosure, includes: a housing including a material dropping chamber for feeding and discharging the metal material and a material etching chamber for performing a plasma etching process; and a pretreatment casing configured to reciprocate between the material dropping chamber and the material etching chamber in the housing, wherein the pretreatment casing receives the metal material from the material dropping chamber to store the metal material, moves to the material etching chamber to plasma-etch a surface oxide layer of the stored metal material, and then returns to the material dropping chamber to drop the etched metal material into the melting furnace.

The disclosure relates to a machine for thermal treatment of bulk material, comprising, a stationary furnace which presents a support structure, and a plurality of pallet cars traveling through the furnace, said plurality of pallet cars together defining, at a lateral side thereof, a common engagement surface which extends through the furnace, wherein a gap is defined between the support structure of the furnace and the common engagement surface, said gap having a gap length, the machine further comprising: a sealing system comprising: one or more drop bars, wherein each drop bar of the one or more drop bars includes a brush arranged on the drop bar such that the brush is configured to be in engagement with the common engagement surface such that the one or more drop bars covers the gap over at least parts of the gap length.

The disclosure relates to a machine for thermal treatment of bulk material, comprising, a stationary furnace which presents a support structure, and a plurality of pallet cars traveling through the furnace, said plurality of pallet cars together defining, at a lateral side thereof, a common engagement surface which extends through the furnace, wherein a gap is defined between the support structure of the furnace and the common engagement surface, said gap having a gap length, the machine further comprising: a sealing system comprising: one or more drop bars, wherein each drop bar of the one or more drop bars includes a brush arranged on the drop bar such that the brush is configured to be in engagement with the common engagement surface such that the one or more drop bars covers the gap over at least parts of the gap length.

Methods and systems for determining a respective mass associated with respective portions of the respective layers of metallic scrap material deposited into a charging-bucket associated with a batchwise-charged electric arc furnace (EAF) are provided, in which the methods and systems determine the respective masses associated with the respective portions of the respective layers of metallic scrap material based on (a) the respective volume of the respective portions of the respective layers of metallic scrap material and (b) the respective assigned densities assigned by a machine learning classification model based on digital images of the respective portions of the respective layers of metallic scrap material.