A multinational aluminum producer finalized an order for a 100,000-pound-capacity tilt melting furnace for one of its regional aluminum extrusion plants. SECO/WARWICK USA will fabricate the aluminum reverb furnace in Pennsylvania. It is designed to reduce the charge of aluminum scrap to a molten bath that will then be tilted and poured into an adjacent tilting holding furnace, which was built and installed by SECO/WARWICK about 10 years ago, where further purification and alloying occurs prior to casting. The furnace hearth will have dimensions of 20 feet, 10 inches wide x 14 feet, 3 inches long x 34 inches deep, giving it a full capacity of 100,000 pounds of molten aluminum. The furnace will be custom-designed to fit in an existing constrained space.

Based on the dimensional constraints, a single pair of regenerative burners were chosen because they offer higher efficiency gains for the same amount of physical space. Regenerative burners work in pairs, with one firing and the other exhausting. They recuperate otherwise wasted heat in the exhaust gasses by using it to preheat the incoming combustion air. Another optional feature will allow for a magnetic stirrer (supplied by the customer) to be mounted under the furnace, saving more energy by increasing the melt rate by up to 10%.

The furnace will complete one full batch cycle in under 6 hours, for four batches a day, yielding a total of 340,000 to 400,000 pounds per day.