High temperature furnace nose construction

In a high temperature furnace constructed of refractories, curved nose construction having its center of radius of curvature outside the cold side of said furnace and said refractories suspended from a support structure providing refractory replacement from the cold side of said refractories comprising:

• a plurality of adjacent wedge-shaped refractories arranged to form a wedge row along the length of said nose, each said wedge refractory having one set of opposing parallel sides and one set of opposing converging sides converging toward said cold side of said wedge refractory, said wedge refractories arranged with their parallel sides adjacent to form said wedge row;
• a plurality of adjacent rectangular-shaped refractories arranged to form a straight row along the length of said nose, each said rectangular refractory having two sets of opposing parallel sides, one of said parallel sides adjacent one of said converging sides of at least one of said wedge refractories;
• each pair of two adjacent of said wedge refractories in each said wedge row independently suspended from said support structure by suspension means and each pair of two adjacent of said rectangular refractories in each said straight row independently suspended from said support structure by suspension means comprising a hanger rod suspended from said support structure and a refractory hanger suspended from said hanger rod, said hanger rod comprising a first hook over said support structure on one end and a second hook for suspending said hanger on the other end, said refractory hanger comprising a hook engaging said second hook at one end and means for suspending said refractory pair from said hanger at the other end, said suspension means and support structure providing space allowing removal of each said pair of refractories from said cold side of said curved nose construction;
• and
• a plurality of said wedge rows and at least one said straight row adjacent each said wedge row forming said curved nose construction.

A method of removing a wedge-shaped refractory in a suspended curved nose construction having its center of radius of curvature outside the cold side of said furnace of the type having a plurality of adjacent wedge-shaped refractories arranged to form a wedge row along the length of the curved nose with the converging sides converging toward the cold side of the refractories and a plurality of adjacent rectangular-shaped refractories arranged to form a straight row along the length of the nose wherein a wedge row is adjacent a straight row on at least one side and each pair of two adjacent of said wedge refractories in each said wedge row independently suspended from said support structure by suspension means and each pair of two adjacent of said rectangular refractories in each said straight row are independently suspended from a support structure by suspension means and spaced to allow removal of each said pair of refractories from said cold side of said suspended curved nose construction and a plurality of said wedge rows and a plurality of said straight rows, at least one of said straight rows adjacent each said wedge row forming said curved nose construction, said method comprising:

• first removing at least one of said pairs of rectangular-shaped refractories toward the cold side of the refractories;
• and
• then removing at least one of said pairs of wedge-shaped refractories adjacent said removed rectangular-shaped refractories toward the cold side of the refractories.