Green Power Furnaces in Aluminum Cast House for Scrap Preheating Using CO2-Flue Gas

摘要

Implementing preheating furnaces in the aluminum industry, powered by waste heat, has been a subject of interest due to the economic and energy-saving benefits. Metal holding furnaces, keeping aluminum in a liquid state (approx. 760 degrees C) before casting, are powered by fuel burners. Hot flue gas escapes the cast house furnaces at very high temperatures close to the aluminum melting point and represents a significant energy loss. One can heat aluminum scrap by redirecting hot flue gases from the holding furnace to a metal scrap preheating furnace, which is to be melted, prior to loading them in the metal melting furnace. Introducing a preheating step, incredibly hot flue gas, will reduce the melting time required while saving energy. This present study examines the effectiveness of preheating aluminum sow and billet profiles with hot flue gases and find the optimal design considerations for a preheating furnace. Different approaches to achieve quantitative heat treatment in batch homogenizing furnaces were evaluated. Heat transfer modeling, analysis of flue gas furnace, and sows' temperature coupled with thermodynamic analysis improve thermal equation prediction precision. Turbulent fluid flow and heat transfer physics are used in a computational fluid dynamics model to simulate aluminum heating by hot gas.