A furnace roller for a roller hearth furnace has a hollow cylindrical ceramic roller body having an outer oxidic coating. The roller body has outer longitudinal fins and longitudinal grooves that run in linear longitudinal direction of the roller body. The configuration reduces the contact area between the roller body and the blanks to be transported. The furnace rollers are suitable for use in roller furnaces in hot forming lines for the press hardening of AlSi-coated steel blanks.

A steel sheet heating method that heats a steel sheet (K) to be pressed before hot press molding includes: bringing the steel sheet into a heating furnace (10) including a heater (15) on an inside surface of the heating furnace in a state where the steel sheet is supported in a vertical direction while an unnecessary portion of the steel sheet that becomes unnecessary after molding is fixedly supported by a support member (30); and performing heating at a prescribed temperature in the heating furnace, then taking the steel sheet out of the heating furnace, and after that cutting and removing the unnecessary portion before hot press molding or during hot press molding.

The present invention discloses a cylindrical heating apparatus for aluminum foil annealing furnaces. During use, a fan sends air through an air inlet into the cylindrical shell, where the air flows circumferentially along the inner wall of the cylindrical shell, a guide plate directs a portion of the air to middle areas of the cylindrical shell to enhance the heat convection exchange between heating cores located in the middle areas of the cylindrical shell and the air, thereby improving the heating efficiency of the heating cores.