Oxidation furnace

An oxidation furnace for the oxidative treatment of fibers comprising:

• a) a housing which except for passage regions for fibers is gas tight;
• b) a process chamber which is located in the interior of the housing;
• c) an atmosphere generating installation by way of which a hot operating atmosphere is generatable and capable of being blown into the process chamber in a flow direction, which hot operating atmosphere under process conditions perfuses the process chamber in a main flow direction;
• d) deflection rollers which guide the fibers in a serpentine manner such that they lie beside one another in the form of a fiber carpet through the process chamber, wherein the fiber carpet defines a plane between respective mutually opposite deflection rollers;
• wherein
• e) a flow measurement system is present by means of which under process conditions a flow profile of the operating atmosphere is establishable and which for determining the flow velocity in both the flow direction and in a direction transverse to the flow direction, the flow measurement system comprising at least one sensor installation which is disposed in a sensor region between two adjacent fiber carpets, wherein measured flow data captured by the at least one sensor installation is provided to a controller which generates the flow profile and controls a rate of air supplied to the process chamber to control the atmosphere in the process chamber based on the calculated flow profile.

An oxidation furnace for the oxidative treatment of fibers comprising:

• a) a housing, which except for passage regions for fibers is gas tight;
• b) a process chamber which is located in the interior of the housing;
• c) an atmosphere generating installation which generates and blows a hot operating atmosphere into the process chamber, the hot operating atmosphere being blown into the process chamber in a main flow direction under process conditions;
• d) deflection rollers which guide the fibers in a serpentine manner such that they lie beside one another in the form of a fiber carpet through the process chamber, wherein the fiber carpet defines a plane between respective mutually opposite deflection rollers;
• e) a flow measurement system for establishing a flow profile of the operating atmosphere under process conditions, the flow measurement system comprising at least one differential-pressure sensor, the at least one differential-pressure sensor comprising a plurality of pitot tubes each having a measurement portion, and a plurality of reference tubes each having a measurement portion, the measurement portion of the plurality of pitot tubes and the measurement of the plurality of reference tubes extending across a portion of the process chamber in a direction transverse to the main flow direction under process conditions, the plurality of pitot tubes and the plurality of reference tubes being spatially separated, wherein
• a. the plurality of pitot tubes being of dissimilar length and disposed adjacent one another so that the measurement portion of each pitot tube is arranged adjacent the measurement portion of at least one other pitot tube and are aligned in a direction counter to the main flow direction under process conditions;
• and
• b. the plurality of reference tubes being of dissimilar length and disposed adjacent one another so that the measurement portion of each reference tube is arranged adjacent the measurement portion of at least one other reference tube and are aligned with the main flow direction under process conditions.