Novelis, Inc.

Edwin L Rauch

Robert Bruce Wagstaff

JungYoung Son

Wesley Donald Stevens

Jungyoung Son

Steven W Dinsmore

Tina Kosmicki

Stephen James Salt

Donnie Northern

A burner for a metal-melting furnace can releasably receive a tapered plug in sealing engagement with an access passage aligned with an air passage. The burner may be configured to extend through a wall of the metal-melting furnace so that the air passage is through a front face within the furnace and so that the access passage is through a rear face outside of the furnace. The access passage may be aligned with the air passage to permit a rigid structure to be passed through the burner from outside the furnace to dislodge build-up of solidified metal from the air passage. The tapered plug may be moveable between a sealing configuration of being received in a seat to seal the access passage during burner operation and a cleaning configuration of being removed from the seat to expose the access passage for insertion of the rigid structure.

Tapered plug burner cleaning ports

An expansion constraint assembly can be attached to the exterior of a kiln cylinder. The expansion constraint assembly may include an outer constraining structure, an inner circular structure, and support structures extending between the inner circular structure and the outer constraining structure. The support structures may extend at an offset angle away from a radial direction of the outer constraining structure. The expansion constraint assembly may also include additional rings disposed between the inner circular structure and the outer constraining structure. The expansion constraint assembly can constrain asymmetric expansion of the kiln cylinder, for example, by relieving uniform expansion as a rotational shift, while restraining asymmetric expansion via tensile and compressive stresses in inter-connecting members.

Expansion constraint assembly and related methods

A cooling system for the decoating system includes a sensor, a control device, and a controller communicatively coupled with the sensor and the control device. The sensor is configured to measure a characteristic of the cooling system in the decoating system, the control device controls the characteristic of the cooling system, and the controller is configured to adjust the control device to adjust the characteristic of the cooling system based on at least one of a measured temperature within the decoating system or the measured characteristic. A method of controlling a temperature of the decoating system includes measuring a temperature within a piece of equipment of the decoating system and measuring a characteristic the cooling system in the piece of equipment of the decoating system. The method includes controlling the cooling system to adjust the characteristic based on at least one of the measured temperature or the measured characteristic.

Cooling system and method for decoaters

A decoating system includes a dust cyclone and cooled conveyor. The dust cyclone is configured to receive an exhaust gas from a decoating kiln, filter organic particulate matter from the exhaust gas as dust, and discharge the dust at a discharge temperature. The cooled conveyor is configured to receive the dust from the dust cyclone and cool the dust to a dust processing temperature that is less than the spontaneous reaction temperature.

Cooled conveyor for decoating systems

Systems and methods for efficiently performing rotary batch decoating can use time-offset batch reactors. A first batch reactor can operate out of phase with a second batch reactor, so that the burning of pyrolysis gases from the first reactor can be used to provide fuel to the incinerator used to heat the material in the second reactor. After the first reactor is dumped and filled with new material, the pyrolysis gases from the second reactor can be used to provide fuel to the incinerator, which heats the material in the first reactor.

Rotary batch decoater

A high organic concurrent decoating kiln includes a low-oxygen zone and a high-oxygen zone. The disclosed kiln allows a gas low in free oxygen to be used in the initial stages of decoating, while a gas higher in free oxygen can be used in the final stages. The total amount of free oxygen used throughout the kiln, in particular at the upstream portion of the kiln, is kept low. Exhaust gas can be recirculated for use in a burner-fired chamber that provides the initial low-oxygen gas to the kiln.

High organic concurrent decoating kiln

A magnetic pump in a pump well in a molten metal furnace with a long, relatively thin side wall that wraps around a significant fraction of the circumference of the pump, which facilitates creation of an eddy current based flow field in the molten material with better magnetic coupling, thereby enhancing the effectiveness of the pump. Breach of the well wall will not result in spillage of metal outside the furnace, and the well can be monitored for any such breach or other change so that the pump can be lifted out of the well to protect it from contact with the molten metal in the event of such a breach, or other appropriate action can be taken.

Magnetic pump installation

An exemplary embodiment provides a regenerative burner apparatus. The apparatus includes a burner housing having a gas channel and a single-stage heat regenerator equipped with a housing enclosing a fluid-porous heat regenerative media bed. A first gas passageway in the housing directly interconnects the gas channel and the lower surface of the media bed. A second gas passageway in the housing interconnects an opening in the housing communicating with the exterior and the upper surface of the media bed. This arrangement allows hot waste combustion gases to pass upwardly through the media bed so that any condensable contaminant in the gases condenses to a liquid and flows out of the bed under gravity before becoming solid and clogging the bed. The liquid contaminant may then be removed from the regenerator from a position below the media bed.

Reverse flow regenerative apparatus and method

An exemplary embodiment of the invention provides a side well for a metal melting furnace. The side well comprises an insulated body having a front wall adapted to form part of an insulated side wall of a metal melting furnace and a top, a cavity within the body including a single upright well having a cylindrical wall adjacent to a closed bottom of the cavity, an entrance to the cavity at the top of the insulated body, a metal inlet channel leading directly into the cavity from an inlet aperture in the front wall, and a metal outlet channel leading directly from the cavity to a metal outlet aperture in the front wall. The side well includes a rotatable impeller having a vertical rotatable shaft and at least one vaned section positioned at a lower end of the rotatable shaft; wherein the impeller extends into the cavity with the vaned section positioned in the well adjacent to the cylindrical wall.

Side well for metal melting furnace

Exemplary embodiments provide a movable sweat hearth for use with a metal melting furnace having a wall provided with a metal-loading entrance. The sweat hearth includes a hearth body movable relative to the furnace into and out of contact with the wall of the furnace at the entrance. The body has exterior walls enclosing a hollow interior except at a furnace-engagable side wall of the hearth body provided with an opening communicating with the interior. The interior has a floor adapted to support a charge of scrap metal, and the opening is positioned relative to the floor to allow molten metal to drain from the interior through the opening. The floor is arranged at an angle to horizontal to slope in a downward direction towards the opening when the container is moved into sealing engagement with the wall of the furnace with the opening aligned with the furnace entrance. Other exemplary embodiments relate to a combination of a movable sweat hearth as described above and a metal melting furnace having a front wall provided with a furnace entrance.

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Fulton, NY, United States of America

Edwin L Rauch