Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Frost" to "Fyzabad" / Volume 11, Slice 3

by Various

(b) Crucible furnaces.

(c) Retort furnaces.

Another classification may be based upon the nature of the heating agent, according as it is coal (or some similar combustible) oil, gas or electricity. In this article the general principles of metallurgical furnaces will be treated; the subject of gas- and oil-heated furnaces is treated in the article Fuel, and of the electric furnace in the article Electrometallurgy. For special furnaces reference should be made to the articles on the industry concerned, e.g. [Glass], [Gas], § [Manufacture], &c.

Shaft, Blast and Hearth Furnaces.—The blast furnace in its simplest form is among the oldest, if not the oldest, of metallurgical contrivances. In the old copper-smelting district of Arabia Petraea, clay blast-pipes dating back to the earlier dynasties of ancient Egypt have been found buried in slag heaps; and in India the native smiths and iron-workers continue to use furnaces of similar types. These, when reduced to their most simple expression, are mere basin-shaped hollows in the ground, containing ignited charcoal and the substances to be heated, the fire being urged by a blast of air blown in through one or more nozzles from a bellows at or near the top. They are essentially the same as the smith’s forge. This class of furnace is usually known as an open fire or hearth, and is represented in a more advanced stage of development by the Catalan, German and Walloon forges formerly used in the production of malleable iron.

Fig. 1.—Elevation of Catalan Forge.

Fig. 1 represents a Catalan forge. The cavity in the ground is represented by a pit of square or rectangular section lined with brick or stone of a kind not readily acted on by heat, about 1½ or 2 ft. deep, usually somewhat larger above than below, with a tuyere or blast-pipe of copper penetrating one of the walls near the top, with a considerable downward inclination, so that the air meets the fuel some way down. In iron-smelting the ore is laid in a heap upon the fuel (charcoal) filling up the hearth, and is gradually brought to the metallic state by the reducing action of the carbon monoxide formed at the tuyere. The metal sinks through the ignited fuel, forming, in the hearth, a spongy mass or ball, which is lifted out by the smelters at the end of each operation, and carried to the forge hammer. The earthy matters form a fusible glass or slag melt, and collect at the lowest point of the hearth, whence they are removed by opening a hole pierced through the front wall at the bottom. The active portion of such a furnace is essentially that above the blast-pipe, the function of the lower part being merely the collection of the reduced metal; the fire may therefore be regarded as burning in an unconfined space, with the waste of a large amount of its heating power. By continuing the walls of the hearth above the tuyere, into a shaft or stack either of the same or some other section, we obtain a furnace of increased capacity, but with no greater power of consuming fuel, in which the material to be treated can be heated up gradually by loading it into the stack, alternately with layers of fuel, the charge descending regularly to the point of combustion, and absorbing a proportion of the heat of the flame that went to waste in the open fire. This principle is capable of very wide extension, the blast furnace being mainly limited in height by the strength the column of materials or “burden” has to resist crushing, under the weight due to the head adopted, and the power of the blowing engine to supply blast of sufficient density to overcome the resistance of the closely packed materials to the free passage of the spent gases. The consuming power of the furnace or the rate at which it can burn the fuel supplied is measured by the number of tuyeres and their section.

The development of blast furnaces is practically the development of iron-smelting. The profile has been very much varied at different times. The earliest examples were square or rectangular in horizontal section, but the general tendency of modern practice is to substitute round sections, their construction being facilitated by the use of specially moulded bricks which have entirely superseded the sandstone blocks formerly used. The vertical section, on the other hand, is subject to considerable variation according to the work to which the furnace is applied. Where the operation is simply one of fusion, as in the iron-founder’s cupola, in which there is no very great change in volume in the materials on their descent to the tuyeres, the stack is nearly or quite straight-sided; but when, as is the case with the smelting of iron ores with limestone flux, a large proportion of volatile matter has to be removed in the process, a wall of varying inclination is used, so that the body of the furnace is formed of two dissimilar truncated cones, joined by their bases, the lower one passing downwards into a short, nearly cylindrical, position. For further consideration of this subject see [Iron and Steel].

Hearth furnaces are employed in certain metallurgical operations, e.g. in the air-reduction process for smelting lead ores. The principle is essentially that of the Catalan forge. Such furnaces are very wasteful, and have little to recommend them (see Schnabel, Metallurgy, 1905, vol. 1. p. 409).

Reverberatory Furnaces.—Blast furnaces are, from the intimate contact between the burden to be smelted and the fuel, the least wasteful of heat; but their use supposes the possibility of obtaining fuel of good quality and free from sulphur or other substances likely to deteriorate the metal produced. In all cases, therefore, where it is desired to do the work out of contact with the solid fuel, the operation of burning or heat-producing must be performed in a special fire-place or combustion chamber, the body of flame and heated gas being afterwards made to act upon the surface of the material exposed in a broad thin layer in the working bed or laboratory of the furnace by reverberation from the low vaulted roof covering the bed. Such furnaces are known by the general name of reverberatory or reverbatory furnaces, also as air or wind furnaces, to distinguish them from those worked with compressed air or blast.

Originally the term cupola was used for the reverberatory furnace, but in the course of time it has changed its meaning, and is now given to a small blast furnace such as that used by iron-founders—reverberatory smelting furnaces in the same trade being called air furnaces.