Electric induction heating and melting furnace refractory life cycle wear imaging and processing

A method of measuring wear of a consumable refractory lining in a crucible of an electric induction furnace for heating and melting materials, the electric induction furnace disposed in a foundry environment, the method comprising:

• performing a series of periodic total consumable refractory wall data scans, each one of the series of periodic total consumable refractory wall data scans comprising the sequential steps:
• (a) positioning a sensor unit attached to a motion mount offset above a crucible top opening of the electric induction furnace, the sensor unit approximately centered over the consumable refractory lining;
• (b) rotating the sensor unit with the motion mount to a vertical two-dimensional consumable crucible surface diameter scan plane;
• (c) performing a plurality of planar beam scans in the vertical two-dimensional consumable crucible surface diameter scan plane for a plurality of consumable refractory surface scan plane wall data points;
• (d) storing the plurality of consumable refractory surface scan plane wall data points in a storage memory device;
• (e) incrementing the vertical two-dimensional consumable crucible surface diameter scan plane by rotation of the sensor unit with the motion mount through an incremental scan plane angular rotation (y) of the sensor unit;
• (f) if a sum of the incremental scan plane angular rotations is less than 180 degrees in step (e) perform steps (c) through (e);
• and
• (g) if the sum of the incremental scan plane angular rotations is greater than 180 degrees store the plurality of consumable refractory surface scan plane wall data points for each one of the vertical two-dimensional consumable surface diameter scan planes as one of the series of periodic total consumable refractory wall data scans.

A method of measuring wear of a consumable refractory lining surface in an empty hot crucible of an electric induction furnace for heating and melting materials, the electric induction furnace disposed in a foundry environment, the method comprising:

• positioning an imaging assembly having a sensor unit and a motion mount attached to the sensor unit, the sensor unit and the motion mount offset above a top opening of the empty hot crucible with the sensor unit and the motion mount approximately centered over the center of the empty hot crucible;
• executing a plurality of sequential two-dimensional planar scans of the consumable refractory lining surface with the sensor unit in the empty hot crucible, each of the plurality of sequential two-dimensional planar scans formed by a beam sweep in each of the plurality of sequential two-dimensional planar scans, each of the plurality of sequential two-dimensional planar scans followed by a plurality of radial rotations of the sensor unit by the motion mount to generate a refractory lining surface raw data scan;
• and
• transmitting the refractory lining surface raw data scan from the laser imaging assembly to a human machine interface for an image processing of the refractory lining surface data raw data.