If you’re at all like me, you wonder which articles get the most attention on our website. Every year we publish over 40 feature articles, and at the end of the year we gather statistics to see which ones get the most page views. So, without further ado, here are the five most-viewed articles on www.industrialheating.com based on page views in 2022. This ranking applies only to articles published in 2022.

Photo courtesy of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Number 5: Modeling and Controlling High-Temperature Manufacturing Processes with AI

High-temperature processes – such as those required to manufacture metal products – are very difficult to monitor, model and control. Monitoring a high-temperature, highly reactive material requires extremely robust, externally cooled instruments that can be short-lived and extremely expensive.

Published in May 2022, this article was provided by Vic Castillo, Aaron Fisher and Robin Miles of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif. Its premise is that the development of computer modeling and simulation tools have led to great advances in understanding how materials move and behave within hot, corrosive environments.

Read the article here.

Photo courtesy of Raba Axle; Györ, Hungary

Number 4: Applying Through-Process Temperature Monitoring in Continuous Furnaces

Careful preparation and planning as to how pyrometry requirements should be implemented are essential from a practical perspective, especially for ever-increasing automated and complex multistage, semi-continuous or continuous processes.

This article, written by Dr. Steve Offley of PhoenixTM Ltd. and published in August 2022 , discusses the challenges of performing the temperature uniformity survey (TUS) with particular reference to employing the “thru-process” TUS principle applied to continuous and/or semi-continuous processes. The focus is on the AMS2750G specification.

Read the article here.

Photo courtesy of The L.S. Starrett Company 

Number 3: Know Your Hardness Testers for Optimal Results

Understanding the different hardness testing types and systems can be useful to determine an optimal solution. Hardness testing functionality has evolved, and now users can dial into world-class-caliber instrumentation that more closely aligns with their applications at hand.

John Richardson of The L.S. Starrett Company discusses several hardness tests in this article, which was published in May 2022. He focuses mainly on the Rockwell hardness test.

Read the article here.

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Number 2: Why is Measuring the Flow of Air and Fuel in a Furnace Important?

Manish Patel of LEOMI Instruments answers this question in his April 2022 article. According to Patel, air-to-fuel ratio control is vitally important to achieve optimum thermal or combustion efficiency. For this reason, excess air (O2%) in furnace exhaust gas (flue gas) should be part of the required control logic. He also discusses the latest advancements in furnace air and gas flow measurement.

Read the article here.

Photo courtesy of Plibrico Company 

Number 1: 5 Things to Consider When Choosing a Refractory Lining

Choosing an appropriate refractory lining for an application isn’t always a straightforward decision. Many times, it is part science and part art. Making an effective choice requires knowledge of the industrial application process, refractory performance expectations and potential refractory service failures. These factors must then be weighed against each other to find the right balance and best solution. While there are a number of important criteria to consider, refractory engineers focus on five aspects to make an evaluation and choose a refractory material for each specific application.

This article, published in February 2022 and written by Plibrico Company of Northbrook, Ill., highlights the five things to consider when selecting a refractory lining.

Read the article here.