A chip melting furnace, completely relined
No joint for it to start at
Initial situation
Chip melting furnaces are the hardest-worked units in the aluminium cycle. The charge from machining has an enormous surface area and carries oil, moisture and oxide into the furnace; every charge causes temperature swings that fatigue a lining from the inside out. At a premium alloy wheel manufacturer, one such furnace had reached the end of its campaign and was due for a complete reline — not patchwork at individual spots, but a full rebuild of the hot face.
Scope of services
- Chip melting furnace
- Complete relining
- Monolithic casting
- Pouring spout
- Melting bridge
- Aluminium recycling
Project data
The task
A chip melting furnace has no simple geometry: bath, melting bridge, ramp, pouring spout, charging and tapping openings all run into one another
Every joint between two casting sections is a predetermined breaking point — melt and thermal shock look for exactly that edge
Openings and arches have to carry load even though nothing but the formwork holds them while the concrete is placed
The date depends on the foundry's shutdown, not on the pace the site would prefer
The SBS approach
The old lining was removed in full and the anchoring exposed and checked before the first piece of formwork went up.
Formwork and casting were divided so that the load-bearing areas — bath, ramp, melting bridge — are created in continuous sections. Where a joint is unavoidable, it deliberately sits outside the zone under the heaviest attack.
The arches over the charging and transfer openings were cast monolithically rather than laid in brick. They are therefore in the same material as the wall they tie into.
The pouring spout was formed as a body of its own and filled in one pour. Molten metal runs over that same edge at every tap — if the geometry does not hold, the pour changes.
After stripping, the entire inner surface was inspected and documented before the furnace was handed over for controlled heat-up.
A chip melting furnace, completely relined in pictures
The finished melting chamber: bath, ramp and side walls in one pour
Melting bridge and ramp — the transition without a joint
Bath sill and wall connection after stripping
Looking in from outside through the charging opening
The arch is cast in place, not laid in brick
The pouring spout from above — the metal runs over this same edge at every tap
Measurable results
The key figures of the “A chip melting furnace, completely relined” project
Similar references
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