Heating furnace system and method for producing hot rolled workpieces

Abstract

A heating furnace system is provided for receiving finite lengths of workpieces from one or more continuous casters and form a supply of heated workpieces at a temperature suitable for rolling in a hot rolling mill. The system includes, in one aspect, a holding furnace receiving a workpiece during continuous casting until it is severed by a cutoff device to prevent unwanted cooling. The workpiece is fed from a holding furnace to a heating furnace wherein it is deposited onto one of a series of vertically spaced supports in a heated section where it remains static throughout the heating process. After heating the workpiece is removed from the stationary supports and returned to rollers of a hearth for discharge from the furnace to a rolling mill. In a second embodiment the holding furnace arrangement provides for separate holding furnaces to receive continuous castings from separate continuous casters and prevent unwanted cooling of the cast workpiece until cut to a finite length. The holding furnaces have doors and longitudinal sides walls to allow transfer of the workpieces seriatim through doors in a central heating furnace. The central heating furnace is aligned with the hearth as in the first embodiment and supplies workpieces serially through the heating furnace.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.