Provided is a heat treatment furnace used to anneal a workpiece to be heat-treated, including a heating chamber configured to heat the workpiece, a first cooling chamber configured to cool the workpiece having passed through the heating chamber, a second cooling chamber that is located on a downstream side of the first cooling chamber in a conveying direction of the workpiece and that is configured to cool the workpiece having passed through the first cooling chamber, and an atmosphere gas supply device configured to supply, as an in-furnace atmosphere gas, an exothermic converted gas to each of the first cooling chamber and the second cooling chamber, the atmosphere gas supply device selectively supplying a first gas that is an exothermic converted gas and a second gas that is an exothermic converted gas and that has a dew point lower than a dew point of the first gas.

The present disclosure relates to a cooling device for heat treatment that performs heat treatment by cooling individually or as a whole a heated metal object. The cooling device for heat treatment includes: a chamber within which a plurality of objects is disposed; an individual cooling unit configured to individually cover the object and to spray a cooling medium onto the object; and a driving unit configured to be provided on the chamber and to move the individual cooling unit in an up and down direction.

The present invention provides a high temperature vacuum furnace that includes a prefabricated solid tongue-and-groove HEFVAC insulation ring assembly hot zone with significantly reduced overall mass, resulting in increased energy efficiency, faster heating and cooling cycles, reduced electricity costs, and expedited maintenance capability thus resulting in lower maintenance costs. The present design eliminates the prior art heavy, fully enclosed metal support ring designed to ensure retention of the insulation shield packages, including all retainer pins and nozzles in place during the heating and high pressure gas quenching cycles, found in prior art vacuum furnaces. The prior art metal support ring is replaced with a bottom support structure whose mass is approximately 80-85% less than the mass of the old support ring. Reducing the mass within the furnace chamber reduces the time and energy it takes to heat and cool the furnace components and the workload being heat treated. Decreased time in the furnace improves production turnaround and lowers energy costs for each heat treating cycle. In one embodiment the prefabricated HEFVAC insulation assembly outer surface contains a very thin stainless steel sheet of approximately 0.030 inches thick, which acts as a low emissivity reflective shield between the prefabricated insulation board ring assembly and the outer water-cooled furnace chamber wall. In another embodiment the prefabricated HEFVAC insulation assembly has no stainless steel sheet on its outside surface adjacent to the furnace plenum and the outer water-cooled furnace chamber wall. The present furnace is easier and less expensive to manufacture compared to prior art vacuum furnaces, and requires less energy to operate.

The present disclosure relates to a decarbonation process of carbonated materials, in particular limestone and dolomitic limestone, with CO.sub.2 recovery in a multi-shaft vertical kiln (MSVK) comprising a first and a second shaft with preheating, heating and cooling zones and a cross-over channel between each shaft. The method includes alternately heating carbonated materials by a combustion of at least one fuel with at least one comburent, up to a temperature range in which carbon dioxide of the carbonated materials is released, the combustion of the fuel and the decarbonation generating an exhaust gas. Decarbonated materials are cooled in the cooling zones with one or more cooling streams. The process further includes extracting the exhaust gas from the multi-shaft vertical kiln and feeding a buffer with the extracted exhaust gas.

A device (1) for drying and/or preheating metallic and/or non-metallic materials, preferably scrap, comprises a receiving container (3) and a scrap basket (7) which is arranged in the receiving container (3) and has a gas-permeable bottom area (9). The receiving container (3) has at least one process gas inlet line (6) in its wall (4), via which a process gas with a temperature in the range from 200 to 1600? C. can be introduced into the receiving container (3), and at least an injector nozzle (19) arranged coaxially within the at least one process gas inlet line (6) via which a cooling gas can be introduced into the process gas.

A cooling apparatus includes: a first air nozzle configured to spray air to the metal strip from above; a first water nozzle configured to spray water to the metal strip from above; and a gas discharging part configured to discharge an air around the metal strip upwardly, wherein the first air nozzle, the first water nozzle and the gas discharging part are aligned along a transport direction of the metal strip in the order of the first air nozzle, the first water nozzle and the gas discharging part, wherein the cooling apparatus is adapted to collide the air from the first air nozzle against the metal strip and then the air moves along a surface of the metal strip to a point at which steam is generated by the water from the first water nozzle, and is adapted to discharge the steam using the gas discharging part.

A vertical batch furnace assembly, comprising a core tube, an outer casing, a cooling chamber bounded and enclosed by the outer casing and the core tube, and at least one cooling gas supply emanating in the cooling chamber. The core tube has an elongated circumferential wall extending in a longitudinal direction, and is configured to accommodate wafers for processing in the vertical batch furnace. The outer casing extends around the core tube and comprises a heating element for applying a thermal treatment to wafers accommodated in the core tube. The at least one cooling gas supply comprises at least one cooling gas supply opening which is arranged such that the cooling gas enters the cooling chamber with a flow direction which is substantially tangent to the circumferential wall.

A method for burning material, such as carbonate rocks, in a parallel-flow regenerative shaft kiln having two shafts which are operated alternately as a burning shaft and as a regenerative shaft and are connected to one another by means of a connecting channel, wherein the material flows through a material inlet into a preheating zone for preheating the material, a burning zone for burning the material and a cooling zone for cooling the material to a material outlet, wherein a cooling gas is admitted into the cooling zone, wherein exhaust gas is discharged from one of the shafts via an exhaust gas outlet, wherein the exhaust gas discharged from the shaft via the exhaust gas outlet is at least partially introduced into at least one of the shafts.

A thermal process device for heat treating a product or plurality of products includes a thermal processing chamber having opposed distal ends and a plurality of controllable heating zones. At least one buffer zone is disposed at each of the distal ends. The buffer zones and heating zones of the thermal processing chamber form a heating element assembly. The heating assembly has an inner and outer surface and a secondary shell is disposed about the outer surface of the heating element assembly and spaced therefrom to form an inlet flow passage for a flow of a temperature adjusting medium along the heating element assembly. A flow directing arrangement is configured to direct the flow of the temperature adjusting medium in the inlet flow passage to the different zones of the heating assembly to adjust the temperature in the heating zones, wherein a majority of the flow of the temperature adjusting medium is delivered to a central zone of the heating temperature assembly and then outward toward at least one of the distal ends.

The invention relates to equipment for cooling a metal strip (2) having a liquid coating to be solidified, wherein said strip is continuously moving. Said equipment is characterized in that each half-cooler (11, 12) is divided, over the length thereof, into at least two sections, a first section (13) and a second section (14), in the direction of the movement of the strip (2). The first section (13) is separated from the second section (14) in each half-cooler (11, 12) by a respective internal adjustment device (7, 8), making it possible to change the gas flow/pressure parameter so that the value of said gas flow/pressure parameter is different in the first section (13) from the value of said parameter in the second section (14).