In a typical multi-burner furnace with numerous temperature measurement points, the change in a single burner’s firing rate can alter the thermal profile inside the furnace in a nonlinear fashion.

As post-pandemic business gets back to normal, it may be time to update your furnace equipment, possibly through a retrofit. There are likely two areas of failure in an industrial furnace: the insulating refractory system or the combustion and controls system. This article includes two brief case studies: a controls and combustion system overhaul and a complete furnace retrofit. These practices give you the opportunity to update on best industry practices and maximize the return on your equipment investment.

With this issue, we continue the circle of life for FORGE magazine. For those of us who have been around since 2006, you are aware that FORGE started from Industrial Heating (IH).

Automation within forges and heat-treating facilities often consists of individually controlled processes for individual pieces of equipment, such as furnace heating or press operation cycles. 

Sheffield Forgemasters signed up as a Tier One Partner with the University of Strathclyde’s Advanced Forming Research Centre (AFRC), part of the National Manufacturing Institute Scotland. The move will give the 200-year-old company, which was recently taken into public ownership, access to the AFRC’s research-and-development facilities focusing on emerging advanced manufacturing technologies such as residual stress, advanced furnaces and forging expertise in Industry 4.0 data analytics and modeling. 

A. Benevenuta & C. S.p.a. ordered a 2,500-ton mechanical forging press from Farina, a Schuler affiliate. The company produces hot-forged steel components for the automotive industry near Turin, Italy. The parts are used in suspension systems, transmissions, engines and brakes in passenger cars, tractors, trucks and earth-moving machinery. The press force of the Benevenuta production lines ranges from 1,200 to 2,500 metric tons.

Schuler and its affiliate Farina demonstrated what the companies say is the world’s largest mechanical forging line to an international group of 60 forging experts. A live video stream transmitted from the production site in Suello, Italy, highlighted the features of the 16,000-ton press, which has a stroke of 600 mm, in action. The press will be delivered to Germany’s thyssenkrupp Gerlach. Due to its Scotch Yoke design, the press has a total height of 14 meters – making it much smaller than conventional presses. This enables high off-center loads and a high number of strokes. From the outside, the GLF-type machine looks like a conventional press, including the flywheel, clutch and crown gear. However, the Scotch Yoke directly works in the slide, which is the reason for the compact design.

Airforge OH 40028 is a non-graphitic die lube formulated for aluminum forging.

While not his first invention, the hammer – and in particular the hammer head – has helped man expand his universe like no other invention until the advent of the personal computer. Through the centuries, the hammer head has kept up with the times, evolving from the Stone Age to the Bronze Age to the Iron Age and through the Industrial Revolution (the Steel Age).