Walking beam furnace

Abstract

A walking beam furnace is provided for moving a work product through a high temperature (1,600.degree. C.) furnace at high speed in large horizontal increments. A monolithic walking beam mechanism, including an array of parallel beams and support therefor, fabricated entirely from a refractory material such as silicon carbide (SIC), provides a movable, planar hearth surface. A fixed array of longitudinally disposed, spaced-apart hearth members, provides a fixed, planar hearth surface. The beams are narrower than the spacing between the hearth members to permit passage of the ,array of beams in coplanar alignment with the fixed hearth members through the spacing between the hearth members. The beams of the walking beam mechanism and the fixed hearth members alternately support the work product so that the work product is conveyed by the beams in an incremental fashion without sliding the work product along the hearth members during a continuous cycle of raising the monolithic beam support, moving it forward, lowering it, retracting it, and raising it again.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.