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Extending the life of water-cooled copper cooling fingers for furnace refractories

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  • Furnace Integrity
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Abstract

To extend the service life of refractory linings in high-temperature furnaces, it is becoming common to embed copper cooling devices in the lining. These devices extract enough heat from the hearth of the furnace to freeze a protective thin layer of slag onto the surface of the lining. However, the cooling devices may lose their efficiency over time. It is believed that high-temperature oxidation of copper is responsible for the loss in heat-extraction capacity. To test coolers under severe conditions, immersion tests were carried out in molten matte and slag of laboratory-scale cooling elements protected by various means. A composite cooler was developed that consists of a copper core shielded by a Cu-4 wt.% Al alloy sheet. Although the rate of heat extraction is not as high as that of the un-alloyed copper, this cooler still extracts heat at a very high rate.

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References

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, the University of Toronto, Canada

    Gabriel Plascencia & Torstein A. Utigard

  2. CIITEC-IPN in Cerrada Cecati s/n, México

    Gabriel Plascencia & David Jaramillo

Authors
  1. Gabriel Plascencia
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  2. Torstein A. Utigard
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  3. Gabriel Plascencia
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  4. David Jaramillo
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Additional information

For more information, contact Gabriel Plascencia, CIITEC-IPN, Cerrada Cecati s/n, C.P. 02250, Mexico, D.F.; e-mail g.plascencia@utoronto.ca.

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Plascencia, G., Utigard, T.A., Plascencia, G. et al. Extending the life of water-cooled copper cooling fingers for furnace refractories. JOM 57, 44–48 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11837-005-0150-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11837-005-0150-x

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