Method and apparatus to facilitate restriking in an arc-furnace

Abstract

To re-ignite efficiently an arc-furnace arc extending between an electrode and a material to be melt, a second energy supply is provided to maintain a plasma link between the electrode and the melting material when the arc-furnace arc is interrupted The electrode is supplied by a large current power supply including a large current conductor having a self inductance and being connected to the electrode. The second energy supply is an electrical power supply wherein a high frequency bypass impedance is provided in a supply path to the large current conductor at a distance from a capacitive circuit to allow a high frequency resonant circuit to be formed by the conductor section between the capacitive circuit and the bypass impedance without adversely affecting the large current power supply of the arc furnace. The capacitive circuit comprises an HF power supply injected in resonance with the resonant circuit to build an oscillating voltage and use the oscillating voltage to inject an HF current between the electrode and the melting metal in order to maintain the plasma link.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.