Southwire Company, LLC

Peter W Ware

Milton E Berry

Thomas N Wilson

John D Butler

Thomas H Crumbley

A vertical shaft furnace for melting non-ferrous metals, such as copper, aluminum, and their alloys, includes metal blocks disposed in an annular wall just beneath the charging section of the furnace. Preheated air is forced into the furnace shaft through openings in the wall of metal blocks to burn or oxidize substantially all the CO gas contained in the combustion gases rising from the melting chamber of the furnace. A pressurized plenum surrounding the shaft adjacent the charge opening is used to preheat ambient air which is then supplied under pressure to another plenum above the melting chamber where the preheated air is introduced into the shaft.

Method of reducing emissions from a metal melting furnace

Reduced emissions metal melting furnace

In a continuous molten metal casting apparatus of the wheel-band type, wherein an elongated endless metal band partially closes a groove inscribed about the periphery of the rotatable casting wheel, an apparatus to apply and maintain a fixed, determinable tension to the elongated, endless band. The tension apparatus of the present invention permits the use of greatly elongated casting bands, maintaining a tension thereon, even during electrical power or air pressure supply failure, to thus provide improved band life. The tension wheel is rotatably mounted upon a carriage which slides on a pair of bellows-enclosed shafts, the carriage riding on a plurality of ball bushings. A dual-action air cylinder, attached at one end to the carriage and the other to the tension mechanism frame, operatively tensions the band through the wheel and carriage assembly. A spring loaded pawl attached to the carriage is restrained from engagement with a frame mounted rack during normal operation, which pawl engages the rack to constrain release of band tension should the air supply fail during operation. The apparatus is of a configuration such that it may be used or retrofitted with a great many of the various wheel-band casting machine configurations of past and present manufacture.

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Carroll County, GA, United States of America

Peter W Ware