Loading system for an annealing furnace charge and components therefor

Abstract

The invention provides a loading system for the charge of an annealing furnace of the kind intended for the treatment of a stack of coils mounted one on top of the other with their central cores in register with one another, a protective heat exchange gas atmosphere being circulated around the stack within a cylindrical bell-shaped muffle cover to heat and subsequently cool the charge. The system comprises a diffuser member having a gas impeller at its center that receives gas passing downwards through the coil cores and discharges it radially into the annular space between the stack and the muffle cover in a preferred helical path. The stack rests on a load member placed on the diffuser member, a convector plate is interposed between each pair of superimposed coils and the stack is completed by a top member and a plug member. Each of the load members, the convector plate and the top member has a plurality of radially extending gas flow passages that permit the gas to pass from the annular space to the coil centers in heat exchange contact with the respective ends of the coils. Thus even distribution of the gas and consequent rapid even heating of the coils is obtained, the flow plug also augmenting a helical downward gas flow in the registering coil cores to the impeller.