Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Blast furnaces differ from bloomeries and reverberatory furnaces in that in a blast furnace, flue gas is in direct contact with the ore and iron, allowing carbon monoxide to diffuse into the ore and reduce the iron oxide. The blast furnace operates as a countercurrent exchange process whereas a bloomery does not.
Two blast furnaces have been preserved, including outer frames, furnaces and Cowper stoves. A protective paint coating minimizes the rusting effects on the blast furnaces. Blast furnace 6 is accessible to the public as part of guided tours. A colorful light installation illuminates the entire area at nighttime. [9] [10] Sulzbach-Rosenberg, Bavaria
The movement away from charcoal in US iron smelting began in 1827, when a puddling furnace in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania started using anthracite coal. Blast furnaces continued to use only charcoal until about 1840, when coke from coal started replacing charcoal as the fuel and reducing agent. [5]
Experimentation showed that a temperature of 600°F reduced fuel consumption to a third of that with cold blast, and enabled raw coal to be used instead of coke, with a further cost saving. It also enabled the exploitation of black band ironstone , the use of which had previously proved unprofitable.
The Summerlee Iron Works was an early adopter of the 'Hot Blast Process', recently patented by James Beaumont Neilson in 1828. This process burned waste furnace gases in regenerative stoves, to heat up a lattice of fire bricks inside them.
The iron ore left in the slag at Laskill has been identified by Gerry McDonnell (archeometallurgist of the University of Bradford) as more refined than anything else at the time, suggesting a much more efficient blast furnace technology than otherwise existed – perhaps as advanced as a modern blast furnace.
Blast from the past: Fragment of Revolution-era cannon discovered near iron furnace site ... the cannon was a cast-off that was never completed by the Mt. Aetna Furnace that operated in the area ...
Shelton Bar (Shelton Iron, Steel & Coal Company) was a 400-acre (1.6 km 2) major steelworks in the city of Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England.In its heyday, Shelton Bar employed 10,000 in the steelworks, had five coal mines, a complete railway system, and a by-products processing factory.