Patent Application
20130020745
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an automatic continuous feeding device of a metallurgical furnace, and in particular relates to a feeding device capable of performing a process of adding new mixed material without destroying an initial sealing status inside the metallurgical furnace.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, graphite-arc heating reduction furnaces for the reduction of silicon material from silicon sand (silica sand) are utilized to gradually heat a mixed material containing silicon sand, coke, coal and wood, from a furnace temperature approaching the environmental temperature to a high temperature of 1500° C. to 2500° C., such that the reduction process of the material to be returned can be fulfilled. After the reduction process above is finished, the temperature of the reduction furnace shall be lowered to a temperature of 250° C., i.e., a temperature approaching the environmental temperature for extracting reduction resultant from the reduction furnace, avoiding the impairs on the equipment, quality of the resultant or operational environment under the acute change of temperature. The next batch of material to be returned is allowed to transmit to the reduction furnace after the resultant (silicon) is removed from the reduction furnace, and the reduction furnace is gradually heated up to the temperature of 1500° C. to 2500° C. from a furnace temperature approaching the environmental temperature above for performing the reduction process.
Due to the large temperature difference between the furnace body and the environment, if the reduction furnace is opened at the temperature of 1500° C. to 2500° C., explosion is possibly occurred and massive high-temperature fluid entering the operation environment results in contaminations and damages to the operation environment and operators on the spot. Even worse is that the high-temperature silicon resultant obtained from reduction process has a sudden temperature drop and possibly generates structural destruction if the reduction furnace is opened at the temperature of 1500° C. to 2500° C., and the silicon resultant contaminated by environmental impurities cannot be utilized. It is practically estimated that a single process of silicon reduction (i.e., from the feeding process, the rising temperature process, the returning process, the dropping temperature process, to the furnace discharging process) takes about thirty-two hours, and a large amount of heat energy is dissipatively wasted in the process of heating the reduction furnace from the temperature of 250° C. up to the temperature of 1500° C. to 2500° C. and the process of lowering the temperature of the reduction furnace to 250° C. for accessing the reduction resultant. Due to the lengthy processing time and in particular of the unceasing damages to the environment and waste of energy in the entire operation process, this conventional metallurgical reduction method costs too much and therefore cannot be deemed as an environmental-protective industrial technique.
For this reason, the inventor of this application provides an invention application, METALLURGICAL SEPARATE REDUCTION METHOD AND EQUIPMENT THEREOF of Taiwan Patent Application No. 100109820, mainly utilizing a reduction furnace combined with a sectionable cooling device to provide a separately reduction metallurgical equipment to perform the metallurgical and cooling processes of the entire metallurgical reduction process at different separate spaces, so that the operations of the metallurgical and cooling processes of the metallurgical reduction furnace are not limited in the reduction furnace, and therefore the disadvantages such as a lengthy waiting time of feeding material, unable-raised productivity and large amount of waste of energy in the conventional metallurgical reduction method can be improved. However, although '820 patent application discloses the method of retaining the sealed and isobaric space inside the reduction furnace in the metallurgical and cooling processes, in the actual application, with the traditional feeding device, the feeding operation could only be conducted in single time, a mixed material must be refilled into the said reduction furnace after every metallurgical process is finished; if the sealed status between the feeding device and the reduction furnace failed to be maintained well when the mixed material is injected into the reduction furnace, both of the temperature and pressure inside the reduction furnace may be decreased, resulting in the lengthy waiting time and waste of energy. Thus, it is essential to provide a feeding device incorporable with the reduction furnace above for shortening working time, increasing metallurgical efficiency and productivity and decreasing waste of energy, under the circumstances of minimizing the destroyed sealing status inside the metallurgical furnace to finish the refilling process of the new mixed material.
In view of this, the invention provides an automatic continuous feeding device of a metallurgical furnace for overcoming the disadvantages of the feeding device of the conventional reduction furnace.
The main purpose of the present invention is to provide an automatic continuous feeding device of a metallurgical furnace, performing several feeding processes to enhance the overall productivity without altering the temperature and pressure inside the reduction furnace.
Another purpose of the present invention is to provide an automatic continuous feeding device of a metallurgical furnace, decreasing the waiting time of feeding material and reducing waste of energy on the repetitive temperature drop and rise of the metallurgical furnace.
To achieve the purposes and effects above, the technical means adopted by the present invention includes an outer barrel and a plurality of inner barrels. The outer barrel comprises an accommodation space with a bottom including an out-feed channel communicated to an interior of a reduction furnace. The inner barrels utilized to receive a material are respectively disposed in the accommodation space of the outer barrel, and each of the inner barrels at least including an out-feed opening. An inner-barrel lower cover being operably opened is disposed on each of the out-feed openings of the inner barrels.
According to the structure above, each of the inner barrels further comprises an in-feed opening at least passing through the outer barrel to communicate to an exterior, and each of the in-feed openings of the inner barrels is enclosed by an openable cover enclosing mechanism.
According to the structure above, the cover enclosing mechanism is an upper cover disposed on the outer barrel, and the upper cover is operable to simultaneously enclose the in-feed openings of each of the inner barrels.
According to the structure above, the cover enclosing mechanism is an inner barrel upper cover disposed on the in-feed opening of each of the inner barrels.
According to the structure above, an out-feed gate is disposed on the out-feed channel.
According to the structure above, a material guiding portion is disposed between the outer barrel and the out-feed channel.
According to the structure above, the material guiding portion has a hopper shape.
A detailed description is given in the following embodiments with reference to the accompanying drawings.
The present invention can be more fully understood by reading the subsequent detailed description and examples with references made to the accompanying drawings, wherein:
The following description is of the best-contemplated mode of carrying out the invention. This description is made for the purpose of illustrating the general principles of the invention and should not be taken in a limiting sense. The scope of the invention is best determined by reference to the appended claims.
Referring to
Referring to
In operation, when the cover enclosing mechanism (upper cover 14) is opened, the material D to be treated and processed from the exterior can be directly refilled in each of the inner barrels 2 through the in-feed openings 21 (shown in
Referring to
In actual applications of the feeding device A′ of the metallurgical furnace of the second embodiment of the invention, the outer barrel 10 combined to the reduction furnace B and the operation thereof are equal to those of the first embodiment. The major difference between the second embodiment and the first embodiment is that the cover enclosing mechanism of the second embodiment comprises the inner barrel upper covers 204 respectively disposed on the in-feed openings 201 of the inner barrels 20, and the inner barrel upper covers 204 can be individually utilized to open or close the in-feed openings 201 of the inner barrels 20, so that the material D from the exterior can be directly refilled in the inner barrels 20 through the in-feed openings 201.
In the disclosed structures of the embodiments above, there still have several structural variations in the actual applications. For example, a supporting frame disposed in the outer barrel 1 can be utilized to operably fix the inner barrels 2 in the outer barrel 1, and the top side of the outer barrel 1 is formed with a hollow opening enclosed by the upper cover 14, wherein the inner barrels 2 is still provided with the out-feed opening 22 and the inner-barrel lower cover 23, the inner barrels 2 can be prefilled with the material D from a place outside the outer barrel 1, i.e., the design of the in-feed openings 21 of the inner barrels 2 can be omitted and the inner barrels 2 can be directly prefilled with the material D through the out-feed openings 22 thereof from a place outside the outer barrel 1, and then the inner barrels 2 are simultaneously disposed in the accommodation space 11 of the outer barrel 1, and the same function and effect as the embodiments above can be achieved accordingly.
In summary, the present invention provides an automatic continuous feeding device of a metallurgical furnace for shortening working time, increasing metallurgical efficiency and productivity and decreasing waste of energy.
While the invention has been described by way of example and in terms of the preferred embodiments, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited to the disclosed embodiments. To the contrary, it is intended to cover various modifications and similar arrangements (as would be apparent to those skilled in the art). Therefore, the scope of the appended claims should be accorded the broadest interpretation so as to encompass all such modifications and similar arrangements.
