Demonstration of a Continuous Billet Holding Furnace and Its Modelling

A continuous holding furnace is designed and demonstrated to retrofit the temperature uniformity of square billets before entering billet mill. During operating at the temperature below 1150°C, the rollers speed in the holding furnace is periodically changed in a range of 10:1 ratio, where as the pitch of rollers is designed as 600mm. The billets, with different cross section areas and length, were charged into the furnace to investigate the temperature distribution across the entire length. The results show as the billet is shorter than the furnace length, the computation modelling is able to accurately simulate the temperature distribution across the billet. In other words, for those billets longer than the furnace, the furnace has to exhibit reheating function in order to lift up the temperature of the billet portion exposed out of the furnace. A furnace demonstration is used to modify the assumptions made in the modelling, and yet the investigations are continuously carried out.