Bloom Refractory Products - Ka-Weld© Refractory Shapes & Fiber Modules
Ka-Weld® is the product name assigned to our preformed refractory shapes and fiber module assemblies, commonly referred to as "support pipe insulation" and is a part of the Bloom Engineering Group Bloom Refractory Products. Ka-Weld is custom engineered, machine pressed, and cured prior to shipment. The water-cooled support pipe structure is a grid work of water-cooled pipe.
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The water-cooled pipe structure supports the steel product to be heated as the slab, strip, bar, billet or bloom is moved through the steel producer's rolling mill pusher or moving beam reheat furnace. The pipe structure is water-cooled in order to withstand and survive furnace temperatures of up to 2400-2500°F.
The heat loss to the water which keeps the structure cool is tremendous. To attempt to operate a modern top and bottom fired furnace without insulating the water-cooled support pipe structure with "pipe insulation" would be analogous to trying to heat your house with the doors and windows wide open, only worse – much worse. The comparison might be more accurate if you also removed the roof.
As a general rule of thumb, heat loss to water has a 10 to 1 ratio of bare pipe to insulated pipe, or approximately 100,000 Btu/ft2/hr heat loss for bare pipe versus a range of 2,000 to 10,000 Btu/ft2/hr heat loss for insulated pipe at 2400°F. This is a dramatic difference in fuel savings. The general rule of thumb for return on investment for pipe insulation is estimated at 18 to 21 turns of operation.
Bloom Refractory Products | Ka-Weld | Table of Contents:
Ka-Weld© For Replacement of Cast-In-Place
