Voest-alpine Machinery, Construction & Engineering Gesellschaft M.b.h.

Voest-alpine Maschinenbau Gesellschaft M.b.h.

Claude Holuigue

Heinrich Panholzer

Wolfgang Trimmel

Karl-Wilhelm Maier

Carbon bodies to be graphitized are clamped together in a horizontal train, n which adjacent end faces of said bodies adjoin each other, and are heated by a flow of electric current in a graphitizing zone and subsequently cooled in a cooling zone. Individual carbon bodies are added to the train at the entrance of the graphitizing furnace and individual carbon bodies which have been graphitized are removed from the train at the exit of the furnace. To ensure that the train will desirably be held to be self-supporting, adjacent carbon bodies are interconnected at adjoining end faces by axial plugs.

Process and apparatus for graphitizing carbon bodies

Carbon bodies to be graphitized are clamped together in a horizontal train, n which adjacent end faces of said bodies adjoin each other, and are heated by a flow of electric current in a graphitizing zone and subsequently cooled in a cooling zone. Individual carbon bodies are added to the train at the entrance of the graphitizing furnace and individual carbon bodies which have been graphitized are removed from the train at the exit of the furnace. To ensure a desirable handling of the train in the furnace, the train being moved through the graphitizing furnace is moved at least in a portion of the cooling zone through a bed of carbonaceous bulk material and outside said bed of bulk material is moved in said furnace through a protective gas atmosphere and the train is held to be self-supporting at least in the graphitizing zone between the furnace electrodes.

For use in the graphiting of carbon bodies, a graphiting furnace is proposed, which contains inert gas and in which carbon bodies forced together to form a train are fed in feeding steps. The train is axially gripped to set up therein an axial compressive stress which is sufficient to render the train self-supporting. That axial compressive stress is also maintained while a graphited carbon body is removed from the train and a carbon body to be graphited is added to the train between consecutive feeding steps.

Growing community of inventors

Le Fayet, France

Claude Holuigue