Apparatus for charging a shaft furnace

An improvement relating to an apparatus for charging a shaft furnace in combination with the shaft furnace, including:

• a bin for a burden;
• an inlet in said bin;
• an outlet in said bin;
• a shaft furnace;
• a throat zone in said shaft furnace;
• a unit for distributing the burden over a cross section of said furnace, said unit being adapted to be disposed in said throat zone and rotate about an axis of said furnace beneath said outlet in said bin along a flow of the burden, and connected to said bin;
• a horizontal member of said unit;
• at least two guiding members of said unit, said guiding members being uniformly circumferentially disposed around a periphery of said horizontal member, each of said at least two guiding members being connected with said horizontal member and having two segments, a first segment and a second segment, which are arranged sequentially in a burden flow direction, the first of said two segments being located in the immediate vicinity of said horizontal member;
• at least two plane faces forming the second segment of said two segments, wherein when intersecting each plane face of said at least two plane faces with a first vertical plane passing through the geometric centre of the plane face and tangentially to a circle lying in a horizontal plane and having the centre on the axis of said furnace and the radius equal to the distance from the axis of said furnace to the geometric centre, an intersection line is formed which is inclined at angle ".alpha." to the horizontal plane, the intersection lines of said at least two plane faces forming a polygonal line, each of successive lengths of which, in the burden flow direction, makes a greater angle of inclination with the horizontal plane than the preceding one, when intersecting each plane face of said at least two plane faces with a second vertical plane passing through the geometric centre of said plane face and the axis of the furnace, an intersection line is formed which is inclined at angle ".beta." to the horizontal plane, with angle ".beta." increasing with the burden flow;
• a burden shoot edge of said second segment, said burden shoot edge facing said throat zone of said furnace.