Search Results for forced circulation

This article illustrates the basic components of dry and wet hearth reverberatory furnaces. It discusses stack melters that are used for aluminum metal casting, as they are efficient in sealing the furnace and using the flue gases to preheat the charge materials. The article describes the various factors for improving and maintaining furnace efficiencies. It explains the benefits of circulating molten metal in reverberatory furnaces and circulation methods.

Porcelain enamel is a fusion bonded glass coating that resists chemical and abrasive attack, provides thermal and electrical insulation, and improves aesthetic qualities. It is used on cast iron as well as steel and aluminum alloys. This article provides a review of the porcelain enameling process, the composition of frits, and the preparation of coating substrates. It also provides information on chemical, mechanical, and electrical properties and sheds light on process consistency and quality control.

This article discusses various molten-metal treatments, namely fluxing, degassing, and molten-metal filtration. It focuses on various molten-metal handling systems for transporting, holding, or delivering molten metal to the mold/die system. These include launders, tundishes, holding furnaces or transport crucibles, molten-metal transfer pumps, teeming ladles, and dosing and pouring furnaces.

This article provides an overview of heat treatment processes, namely, solution heat treatment, quenching, natural aging, and artificial aging. It contains a table that lists the various heat treatment tempers commonly practiced for nonferrous castings. The article describes microstructural changes that occur due to the heat treatment of cast alloys.

Milling of materials, whether hard and brittle or soft and ductile, is of prime interest and of economic importance to the powder metallurgy (PM) industry. This article discusses the principles of milling, milling parameters, and the powder characteristics required for the process. It discusses the changes in powder particle morphology that occur during milling of metal powders produced by various processes such as microforging, fracturing, agglomeration, and deagglomeration. The article also provides useful information on milling equipment such as tumbler ball mills, vibratory ball mills, attrition mills, and hammer and rod mills.

This article describes the principles and classifications of induction furnaces. The classifications of induction furnaces are coreless and channel. The electromagnetic stirring action in these furnaces is reviewed. The article provides information on the various power supplies and water cooling systems for induction furnaces. Furnace operators can increase the power supply utilization by the use of mechanical skimmers. The article describes the various lining materials used in induction furnaces, namely, silica, alumina, and magnesia. The crucible wall scrapers, ramming mixes, and lining push-out device used in induction furnaces are also reviewed. The article concludes with a discussion on batch operation and tap-and-charge operation, two distinct ways of operating a coreless induction furnace.

This article provides an overview of the models of two induction heating devices, namely, induction crucible furnace (ICF) and induction furnace with slits, or segmented and water-cooled induction furnace with cold crucible (IFCC). These devices are used for melting with skull formation of low-conductivity materials such as glasses and oxides. The article presents the governing equations and boundary conditions for ICF and IFCC modeling. It includes a discussion on three electromagnetic field models in IFCC, namely, two-dimensional (2-D), quasi-three-dimensional, and three-dimensional (3-D) models. The article provides information on the simulation of skull formation in IFCC, and elucidates the transient axisymmetrical 2-D model and the transient 3-D model, including the primary results achieved for both glasses and skull formation.

This article provides a detailed discussion on the various devices by which cathodic protection (CP) can be applied to pipe-type power transmission cables. These devices include the resistor rectifier, isolator-surge protector, polarization cells, and field rectifiers. The article describes the interference created by stray currents on CP and associated remedial actions.

This article discusses the functions of lubricants to prevent premature failure of rolling element bearings and the advantages of fluid lubrication. It describes the composition of refined mineral oil for rolling bearing applications. The article reviews the types and properties of nonpetroleum oils, such as polyglycols, phosphate esters, silicone fluids, dibasic acid esters, and fluorinated polyethers. It discusses the properties of greases, including grease speed limits, grease composition, relubrication intervals, corrosion prevention behavior, and grease compatibility. The article concludes with a discussion on polymeric lubricants and solid lubricants.

Alkaline cleaning is a commonly used method for removing a wide variety of soils from the surface of metals. This article focuses on the composition, operating conditions, and test and control of alkaline cleaners, as well as equipment used and their application methods. It describes the mechanisms of alkaline cleaning, such as saponification, displacement, emulsification and dispersion, and metal oxide dissolution. The article concludes with information of the safety and environmental considerations in the usage of alkaline cleaners.

The role of a mixer/agitator in quenching applications is to control the mixing environment in order to meet the process criteria. This article provides the basic fundamentals of the sizing of agitators, tank geometry importance, and other considerations for the application of agitators in quench tanks. It also discusses the differing methods for the sizing and selection of agitators for quench tank applications.

Cutting fluids play a major role in increasing productivity and reducing costs by making possible the use of higher cutting speeds, higher feed rates, and greater depths of cut. After listing the functions of cutting fluids, this article then covers the major types, characteristics, advantages and limitations of cutting and grinding fluids, such as cutting oils, water-miscible fluids, gaseous fluids, pastes, and solid lubricants along with their subtypes. It discusses the factors considered during the selection of cutting fluid, focusing on machinability (or grindability) of the material, compatibility (metallurgical, chemical, and human), and acceptability (fluid properties, reliability, and stability). The article also describes various application methods of cutting fluids and precautions that should be observed by the operator.

Resin transfer molding and structural reaction injection molding belong to a family, sometimes denoted as liquid composite molding. This article provides information on the characteristics and automotive and aerospace applications of liquid composite molding. It reviews techniques that use hard tooling and positive (superatmospheric) pressures to produce structures. The techniques include vacuum-assisted resin injection, vacuum infusion, resin-film infusion, and injection-compression molding. The article provides an overview of the materials that are commonly used together with some of processing characteristics that are important to processing speed and part quality. It concludes with a discussion on design guidelines for the liquid composite molding.

The chemicals that have been used in traditional vapor degreasing have serious health and environmental hazards that have prompted the search for modified and alternative techniques. This article provides a detailed discussion on the regulatory mandates that affect the use of industrial degreasing methods. It describes the aqueous degreasing technique, which forms an attractive alternative to the traditional vapor degreasing process. The article includes information on the materials and equipment used in the process, and discusses the advantages and disadvantages of hot and dip tank systems of aqueous degreasing. It explains how to convert an existing vapor degreaser to an aqueous cleaning system.

This article briefly describes water and steam chemistry, which influence the effect of corrosion in boilers. The appropriate control measures to prevent corrosion in boilers are also presented. The article provides a discussion on the common causes of fluid-side corrosion such as flow-accelerated corrosion, oxygen pitting, chelant corrosion, caustic corrosion, acid corrosion, organic corrosion, phosphate corrosion, hydrogen damage, and corrosion-assisted cracking.

Superconductivity has been found in a wide range of materials, including pure metals, alloys, compounds, oxides, and organic materials. Providing information on the basic principles, this article discusses the theoretical background, types of superconductors, and critical parameters of superconductivity. It discusses the magnetic properties of selected superconductors and types of stabilization, including cryogenic stability, adiabatic stability, and dynamic stability. The article also focuses on alternating current losses in superconductors, including hysteresis loss, penetration loss, eddy current loss, and radio frequency loss. Furthermore, the article describes the flux pinning phenomenon and Josephson effects.

Advances in vehicle design and technology require engine coolant technology to minimize the degradation of nonmetals and prevent the corrosion of the metals in the cooling system. This article provides a detailed discussion on the functions, operation, materials, and major components of the cooling system. It discusses various forms of corrosion that occur in cooling systems, including uniform corrosion, galvanic corrosion, crevice corrosion, pitting corrosion, intergranular corrosion, erosion corrosion, and cavitation corrosion. The article presents information on engine coolant base components and inhibitors used for corrosion prevention. It reviews the coolant performance tests recommended by ASTM, SAE, and vehicle manufacturers. The article concludes with a description on the difference between light-duty automotive and heavy-duty diesel engine coolants.

Molten salts, or fused salts, can cause corrosion by the solution of constituents of the container material, selective attack, pitting, electrochemical reactions, mass transport due to thermal gradients, and reaction of constituents and impurities of the molten salt with the container material. This article describes a test method performed using thermal convection loop for corrosion studies of molten salts. It discusses the purification of salts that are used in the Oak Ridge molten salt reactor experiment. The article also reviews the corrosion characteristics of nitrates/nitrites and fluoride salts with the aid of illustrations and equations.

This article examines a type of corrosion that occurs when solids (primarily metals) are exposed to liquid metal environments. It describes the principle mechanisms of liquid metal corrosion, including dissolution, impurity and interstitial reactions, alloying, and compound reduction. It also provides guidelines for materials selection and alloy development based on liquid metal corrosion reactions.

This article focuses on the basic turbulent flow, and the thermal, mass-transfer, and hydrodynamic phenomena for use in modeling physical processes during induction melting. It provides a discussion on transport phenomena equations that includes the approximation of convective terms in the transport equation and computational schemes for the fluid dynamics equation. The aspects of computational algorithms for specific magnetohydrodynamic problems with mutual influence of the magnetic field and melt flow due to the changing shape of the free surface are also considered. The article illustrates the application of the basic equations and approaches formulated for electromagnetic field and melt turbulent flow for the numerical study of an induction crucible furnace.