Improvements in Means and Appliances for Charging Open Hearth Furnaces,
Year: 1897

page_text: Date of Application, 4th June, 1897
Complete Specification Left, 4th Mar., 1898-Accepted, 28th May, 1898
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION.
Improvements in Means and Appliances for Charging Open Hearth
Furnaces,
We, HENRY TOMKINS, Contractor, CHARLES JOHN BAGLEY, General Manager,
LLEWELYN ROBERTS, Works Manager, and the Moon STEEL AND IRON COMPANY,
LIMITED, all of the Moor Steel and Iron Works, Stockton-on-Tees, in the County of
Durham, do hereby declare the nature of this invention to be as follows:-
--
This invention relates to the operation of charging open hearth furnaces, or
furnaces generally into which heavy charges are made through an opening in the
furnace side.
At present this is done by manual labour, the charge being lifted on to a peel
placed on the furnace fore plate. The peel is then pushed into the furnace and
tilted thereby depositing the charge on the hearth. The weight of the charge
varies and is sometimes very considerable the operation of lifting and charging
requiring the united effort of several men.
The object of this invention is to provide an apparatus worked mechanically by
any power conveniently available or by hand power and by which the time and
labour required in such operations is greatly reduced.
In carrying out our invention we provide a platform or gantry above the furnace
from which a hollow shaft is suspended in front of the furnace breast to serve as a
duct or shoot through which material is delivered into the furnace by the force of
gravity. The upper part or end of this shoot is in the form of a hopper and the
lower part terminates in a spout by which the downward motion of the charge is
deflected into the furnace. The duct or shoot extends downwards a sufficient
distance and is otherwise adapted in form and construction for this purpose.
In
other respects it is bodily moveable the movement covering two directions like a
travelling crane, that is to say that one movement is an in and out movement
relatively to any particular furnace for the purpose of inserting the shoot more or
less into the furnace, the other movement being in line with a series of furnace
breasts so that the same shoot may travel from furnace to furnace as required.
Ordinary rack gearing may be used to effect these movements combined with
suitable means for turning the shoot on its centre to the right or left.
G. J. CLARKSON,
Chartered Patent Agent, Stockton-on-Tees and Hull,
Agent for the Applicants.

page_text: Improvements in Means and Appliances for Charging Open Hearth
Furnaces.
We, HENRY TOMKINS, Contractor, CHARLES JOHN BAGLEY, General Manager,
LLEWELYN ROBERTS, Works Manager, and the MOOR STEEL AND IRON COMPANY,
LIMITED, all of the Moor Steel and Iron Works, Stockton-on-Tees, in the County of
Durham, do hereby declare the nature of this invention and in what manner the
same is to be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the
following statement:-
This invention relates to the operation of charging steel melting open hearth
furnaces into which heavy charges are made through an opening in the furnaco
side and require a trajectory of several feet to reach the other side.
At present this is usually done by manual labour the charge being lifted on to
a peel placed on the furnace fore plate. The peel is then pushed into the furnace
and tilted, thereby depositing the charge on the hearth. The weight of the charge
varies and is sometimes very considerable, the operation of lifting and charging
requiring the united effort of several men. And furthermore the time taken to
charge a furnace this way is so considerable that great loss of heat is incurred in 1
keeping one or other of the charging doors open for such a length of time. In
order to overcome these difficulties, apparatus of an expensive and complicated
kind has been devised and adopted.
The object of this invention is to provide a simple apparatus for putting in a
charge continuously until the furnace is full and by means of which the process 2
of charging is completed in a comparatively short time and loss of heat through
keeping the charging door open is greatly reduced.
In order to obtain the requisite trajectory of the materials across and over the
furnace hearth a hollow shaft or shoot is used through which the materials are
delivered into the furnace by the force of gravity, the said shoot being adapted in 2
form and construction substantially in the manner hereinafter described and illus-
trated in and by the accompanying drawings, in which the duct or shoot is shown.
in position for charging the furnace together with machinery or appliances of a
kind intended to illustrate by way of example convenient ways of conveying the
charging materials to the requisite elevation for dropping them into the shoot. 3
In Figs. 1 and 2 an open hearth furnace is shown in transverse section taken in line
of a charging door together with a corresponding transverse elevation of the
charging appliance and other structural accessories as hereinafter described.
Fig. 3. is a corresponding elevation showing a furnace front with its several
charging doors; a is the chamber of the furnace and b the charging door, c is the. 3
charging shoot into which pig iron and scrap are thrown to be carried down the
shoot by gravity and discharged into the furnace a.
As furnaces are so constructed and placed that a series of charging doors are
brought into line like openings in a wall, the utility of the charging appliance is
greatly extended by being mounted on an apparatus of the travelling crane type, 4
such as the girder beams & mounted on wheels as shown in Figs. 1 and 2 so as to be
carried along from one charging door to another as required. If adjustment in
the cross direction is required the bearings are carried on a monkey, like the

page_text: hoisting gear of a travelling crane; otherwise the charging appliance is fixed to
the girder beam d.
In Fig. 1 e represents a truck upon an elevated railway from which the pig iron
and scrap is thrown into the shoot c. When an elevated railway is not available
the charging material is thrown from the truck on to a foot plate g from which it
slides into a succession of buckets f, on an elevator e¹ each of which buckets dis-
charges its contents into the shoot c. It will be understood that the momentum
imparted to the material sliding down the shoot c must be adjusted in force to the
dimensions and requirements of the furnace. For instance with a furnace about
eleven feet in width across the hearth, the shoot should provide for a descent of the
charging material a distance taken vertically of about nineteen feet when the
shoot c takes the form shown in Figs. 1 and 2. With this ratio between the width
of furnace hearth and descent of the material the requisite momentum is acquired
for the proper distribution of the charging material over the furnace hearth. If
the momentum is too small the material does not get properly distributed over the
furnace hearth. If too great the furnace is liable to be damaged by the impact of
individual lumps and blocks of the charging material ejected from the shoot with
unnecessary violence. As the duct or shoot c is intended by its shape and position
to enable the charging material to slide and by so doing to acquire a certain
momentum due to the action of gravity and then to divert the effect of the
momentum to a direction in line with the charging door of the furnace, the shape of
the said duct or shoot must be substantially or in effect the same as that shown in
the drawings in which the momentum due to gravity is acquired in the part c and
diverted by the curve or deflection shown at cinto line with the charging door b.
The upper part 2 is conveniently in the form of a hopper for the more easy recep-
tion of the material thrown into it to be ejected in a continuous stream into the
furnace. But in some cases this hopper is extended in the form shown in Fig. 3,,
because as shown in dotted lines the shoot c can be changed in position to embrace
any one of the three charging doors shown, without changing the line of fall of
material charged into the shoot, which in case of an elevator as shown in Fig. 2
would save considerable time and trouble, and this arrangement is particularly
adapted to short furnaces. With a shoot of this kind which diverts the line of
descent of the material as well as deflects it, it is found in practice that a greater
vertical descent of the material is required say 21 feet, where in the other form of
shoot, shown in Figs. 1 and 2, 19 feet would be sufficient. But it must be clearly
understood that if the shoot is not properly inclined the lumps of pig iron and scrap
will plunge down the shoot striking the lower side with great force and then
rebound along the curved or deflected part in a manner unsuited to afford the
proper trajectory into and across the furnace hearth. This would involve the rapid
destruction of the shoot and the material would not be distributed over the furnace
bottom in a uniform manner. But by suitably inclining the shoot in its upward
part and bringing it round by a suitable curve to the horizontal direction the lumps
of pig iron or other heavy lumps can be made to slide through the shoot without
olunging and rebounding either against the spout of the shoot or against one
another and a trajectory is imparted to the materials by which a furnace hearth
an be readily, properly and expeditiously charged, without premature destruction
by injurious or excessive impact or imperfect distribution of the materials.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of our said inven-
ion and in what manner the same is to be performed, we hereby declare that what
ve claim is:
The use in combination with open hearth steel melting furnaces of a duct or
hoot such as c which by its shape and position is adapted to be used as a charging
ppliance into which the material to be charged into the furnace is thrown and
cquires a momentum due to gravity, which momentum is diverted by the deflec-
ion of the tube into line with the charging door 6 of the furnace hearth in the

page_text: manner required, substantially as hereinbefore described with reference to the
accompanying drawings.
Dated this 3rd day of March 1898
G. J. CLARKSON,
Chartered Patent Agent, Stockton-on-Tees and Hull,
Agent for the Applicants.