Improves as
Year: 1888

page_text: Improves as
I, JAMES RILEY, General Manager to The Steel Company of Scotland, Limited, of
23 Royal Exchange Square, Glasgow, in the County of Lanark, North Britain,
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, that is to say :-
My said Invention has for its object to improve the construction and increase the
durability of steel-making furnaces of the kind for working what is known as the basic
process of making steel.
The walls and other structural parts of steel-making furnaces being built with fire-
bricks or bricks consisting principally of silica, and the hearth, bed or lining consisting
principally of dolomite or other basic material, the two tend to react upon each other
at their junction or contact surfaces, when subjected to great heat, the result being
formation of a fused slag and injury of the structure, as well as imperfection in the
steel-making operation. It has been attempted to avoid the injurious action referred
to, by interposing between the basic hearth, bed, or lining and the parts of the furnace
walls adjoining the hearth and the internal surfaces of which are subjected to the heat,
a layer of a neutral substance or composition; but such layer has been made a part of
the walls or has been placed so as to sustain more or less of the weight of the upper
part of the walls and roof, and it has in practice given way through the crushing action
of such weight, thereby causing collapse of the furnace.
By my Invention I interpose between the boundary of the basic hearth, bed, or
lining, and the walls of the furnace or reverberatory chamber, a vertical barrier of a
neutral substance or composition, such neutral barrier having no part of the walls nor
any weight resting on it, and being therefore, not liable to displacement or crushing.
And in order that my said Invention and the manner of performing the same
may be properly understood I hereunto append a sheet of explanatory drawings
to be hereinafter referred to and representing furnaces as constructed with my
improvements.
Figures, 1, and 2, of the drawings are longitudinal and transverse vertical sections
of a regenerative steel-making furnace of the Siemens type; and figure, 3, is a

page_text: corresponding horizontal section. Figures, 4, and 5, are vertical and horizontal
sectional views of a regenerative steel-making furnace of the Batho type; and
figures, 6, and 7, are vertical sections of portions of furnaces and showing slight
modifications in the precise placing of the neutral barrier relatively to the other
parts. In these drawings the same reference numerals are used to mark the same or
like parts wherever they are repeated.
The general construction of the furnaces with their regenerative chambers, 8, 9,
and connecting flues or passages, 10, 11, being well known it is unnecessary to
minutely describe it in the present Specification. In the furnace shown in figures, 1, 2
and 3, the reverberatory chamber, 12, is of an oblong rectangular form in horizontal
section; whilst in the furnace shown in figures, 4, and 5, it is of a circular form, or it
may be of an oval form as it frequently is in that type of furnace. A hearth, bed,
or lining, 13, is formed in each reverberatory chamber, 12, of dolomite or other basic
material or compound, in the usual way; but instead of this hearth having its upper
edge or boundary as large as the interior of the reverberatory chamber at that part, it
is made smaller, and there is interposed all round it a barrier or inner wall, 14, built
or composed of a neutral material or compound such as chrome-iron ore, or magnesito,
or a suitable compound thereof or of other materials. This neutral barrier, 14, (which
is made black in the vertical sections, figures 1, 2, 4, 6, and 7) is in the form of a low
vertical wall, and has its top surface, which is by preference horizontal as shown, but
which may be slightly inclined, level, or nearly so, with the top peripheral edge or
boundary of the basic hearth, 13. The top of the neutral barrier, 14, may be level or
nearly so with the bottoms of the gas ports, 10, as shown in figures, 1, to 5, and 7,
or it may be a little lower as shown in figure, 6. In figures, 1, to 6, the parts of
the furnace walls below the neutral barrier, 14, are shown as thicker than the upper
parts to the extent of the thickness of the neutral barrier; but if preferred, the
walls may be constructed as shown at 15, in figure, 7, the upper parts resting on
plates forming part of the iron or steel casing of the furnace and strengthened by
bracket pieces.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of my said
Invention and in what manner the same is to be performed, I declare that what
I claim is :-
In basic-hearth steel-making furnaces, interposing between the hearth and the
furnace walls a neutral barrier in the form of an inner wall completely surrounding
the hearth the top of which wall is uncovered to the interior of the furnace, substantially
as herein before described.
Dated this Twenty fifth day of Wahrun1000