Hotwork, Division of Fosbel providing combustion services worldwide.

Foundry

Hotwork's services to the foundry industry include Refractory Heatups / Dryouts and Temperature Holds in vertical induction furnaces, horizontal induction furnaces and cupolas.  Techniques have been developed to provide heat to the upper case of the vessels and also to the induction loops.  Hotwork burner portability allows for quick setup and teardown time, while the unique 100 to 1 turndown ratio provides the ability to accurately adhere to prescribed heatup schedules.

Refractory Dryout & Heatup

Hotwork is the pioneer of the convective heating process, which simplifies refractory dryouts and heatups.  The one-sided drying of monolithic refractories is an extremely complex transient heat and mass transfer phenomenon which includes chemical reactions throughout the dryout.  Moisture trapped in a refractory lining after a furnace or vessel rebuild is especially detrimental to optimum refractory performance.

Hotwork's convective heating method utilizes rapid heat transfer at all temperature levels.  Our patented burners produce high velocity combustion, which is accurately controlled from ambient to temperatures in excess of 2500°F (1370°C).  This high discharge rate circulates the products of combustion evenly throughout the vessel, regardless of size and configuration, producing overall temperature uniformity.  The process results in fast, even moisture removal across the entire refractory lining allowing rapid furnace startups.

Hotwork has successfully completed dryouts and heatups on:

  Cupolas
Vertical Channel Melting and Holding Furnaces
Horizontal Channel Melting & Holding Furnaces
Channel Inductors

Temperature Holds

Hotwork can supply heat for maintaining furnace temperature during production outages.  In emergency situations, Hotwork can even provide a source of high BTU heat for production.

Furnace Melt-Outs - Whenever metal becomes frozen in a furnace or ladle, Hotwork's melt-out service is a quick and efficient means to solve such problems when the permanent combustion system is not operable or practical to use.