Between May and December 2023, NUTEC Bickley will manufacture and install five completely new furnaces and a fully modernized combustion system for a leading US manufacturer of high-quality alloy steel and carbon steel closed-die forgings. Onsite work will be completed by NUTEC Bickley’s expert team one furnace at a time so that in any given month, no more than one furnace will be out of operation to help the customer keep its production schedules fully on track.
This highly prestigious contract involves five new lift-up furnaces – two for tempering and three for austenitizing. Each furnace will have a comprehensively modernized combustion system (including replacement fans), the latest control systems, complete fiber flues, a new exhaust and pressure control system, and freshly insulated casings.
Each state-of-the-art combustion package will be fully compliant with NFPA 86 standards. The installations will comprise the complete supply of materials and instrumentation required to operate the furnace combustion systems, plus new air and gas piping sets.
The operation will be based on a fuel-only control system (fixed air modulating gas) to allow maximum temperature uniformity potential for all cycles. The furnaces will benefit from incorporating high-velocity nozzle mixing burners fitted with high-temperature blocks. These burners fire with a constant air volume while the control system regulates the gas input by modulating an impulse-bleed valve.
Meanwhile, the combustion systems will be equipped with an automatic air control valve on the central air manifold that will provide the means to adjust the maximum air volume the system can use and to lower the burners' air supply to ensure proper burner ignition conditions.