Large Galvanising Furnace ‘Super Kettle’

Client

A-Plus Galvanising, Kansas, USA

Services / Products

Design, supply, installation and commissioning of large galvanising kettle. Combustion and control systems.

Scope of Service

A-Plus Galvanising in Salina foresaw a market demand for galvanising large fabricated structures such as cell phone antennae towers. To satisfy this demand an unusually large galvanising kettle was required. The challenge set for our team was to provide a gas-fired heating system that would sustain the operation of this very large kettle, much larger than any built before.

The specifications of the ‘super kettle’ were 25 metres in length, 3.5 metres width, 3.75 metres depth and a capacity of 2,000 tonnes, with a throughput of 73 tonnes per hour.

The combustion system was based on a multi-zone arrangement of high velocity burners configured to fire peripherally into the furnace firing lanes. This along with a carefully engineered control system ensured good temperature uniformity throughout the setting and thus ensuring maximum heat to the process.

Also this minimised the Zinc to Steel interface temperature and with the props ensured extended kettle life.

The system also included the ability to stress relieve the steel kettle shell and melt the zinc load, the former being a ‘one-off’ operation, and the latter a repeated, but infrequent duty.

Benefits of our work

• Dramatic Increase in Galvanising Capacity/Productivity – able to galvanise a 40 Tonnes bridge structure, the largest ever item hot dipped.
• Stress relieving process successfully completed meeting ASTM requirements.
• Reliable Operation
• Energy Efficient
• Low Maintenance Costs