Process-optimized induction furnaces for melting and pouring of copper materials

Designing and building furnace systems for melting and pouring copper materials is a challenging and many-faceted task, given the technological requirements profile of these furnaces. The challenge consists in producing materials with an extremely low oxygen and hydrogen content, which involves very precise oxidation and deoxidation processes. Furthermore, it is necessary to turn out metallurgically difficult alloys that must be cast into highly difficult formats. The many-faceted part lies in accommodating a range of quite different production processes, which calls for a diversity of process-specific furnace designs. The specific benefits associated with the induction furnace technology - such as direct heating of the metal with almost no temperature overshoot, intense but controlled bath movement, high-precision temperature and process management, and adjustable metallurgical behaviour - are of key importance in melting, alloying, refining and pouring as well as in holding the various copper materials at temperature. Thanks to these process benefits and the highly reliable and economical operation and low power consumption, induction furnaces are widely accepted in the manufacture of copper materials and, at the same time, the high metallurgical demands of this material have promoted ongoing development of induction furnace technology [1].