Combustion control in open-hearth furnaces

The advantages of automatic over manual combustion control in open-hearth furnaces include faster response and more accurate control of waste gas composition and firing rate at all times. Comparison of the performance of furnaces with and without controllers in this particular shop indicates that the introduction of automatic combustion control resulted in a 6 percent decrease in the fuel consumption, a 33 percent decrease in basic brick consumption, and a 4.7 percent increase in production rate.