Zink Körner increases efficiency by 10 percent

Efficient furnaces for batch galvanizing: Zink Körner is the only supplier of furnaces that use burners specifically developed for batch galvanizing.
Zink Körner increases efficiency by 10 percent

Zink Körner offers a wide gamut of design features to reduce energy consumption in batch galvanizing. For example, burners specifically developed for batch galvanizing give Zink Körner furnaces efficiencies of 75 percent – 5 to 10 percent more than attained in conventional plants. For a typical furnace, this translates into annual cost savings of about 25,000 euros.

Infinitely adjustable flat flame burners, a wall construction that allows only little heat transfer and a novel reflecting refractory coating lead to a distinct increase in energy efficiency. By offering plant concepts that integrate all these features, Zink Körner is constantly strengthening its position as trendsetter in energy-efficient furnace technology.

In spring 2011, Zink Körner commissioned a new facility for batch galvanizing at Salavatmetall in the Russian Republic of Bashkortostan. In that facility, Zink Körner implemented the full line of economically and ecologically useful technical features.

The plant galvanizes above all polygonal poles, transmission towers and crash barriers. It is designed for a production rate of up to 12 t/h. The galvanizing tank is 13 m long, 1.6 m wide and 3 m deep. The furnace is equipped with 12 flat flame burners of type FL 20/50, which Zink Körner specially developed for batch galvanizing. While using the relatively low-cost natural gas as fuel, these burners afford the benefit of uniform and careful heating – which in the past was only achievable by electrically heated furnaces.

The burners achieve an efficiency of 75 percent. Clear evidence of the efficient energy use is the low flue gas temperature. In a recently implemented project incorporating a furnace with a throughput rate of 10 t/h, the flue gas temperature is only 507 °C. As a comparison: in conventional plants the flue gas temperature is often higher than 625 °C.

Compared with plants using impulse-mode burners, Zink Körner furnaces using flat flame burners achieve impressive energy savings, for example, about 500,000 kWh in a facility with a throughput rate between 10 and 15 t/h operated in two shifts for 4,000 hours per year. At a price of 5 cents per kWh, this results in cost savings of 25,000 euros per year.

Unlike the burners commonly used in the past, these innovative burners operate in a modulating mode. They are infinitely adjustable within a range of 1:10. Through this, the power is being constantly adjusted to match the furnace throughput. Consequently, the furnace consumes exactly the amount of energy required in the specific moment. This regulating mode also avoids abrupt temperature changes, which may cause excessive stresses in the galvanizing tank structure.

In addition to these features, Zink Körner implements further efficiency-enhancing measures. Diffusor plates mounted on the burners direct the gas flow along the inner furnace wall. This produces a combination of radiant and convective heat, which has the effect that the thermal output of the furnaces into the galvanizing tank is high at relatively low mean temperatures. The multi-layer, 300-mm-thick insulation reduces heat loss and the innovative ceramic coating applied to the fibrous insulation additionally reflects the radiant heat towards the interior of the furnace.

Zink Körner at Wire 2012 in Düsseldorf:
Hall 9, stand C14

About Zink Körner

Zink Körner GmbH designs and manufactures the complete array of hot-dip galvanizing equipment for bulk material, tubes and pipes, miscellaneous small parts and centrifugal parts.

The supply range encompasses complete galvanizing plants, including pretreatment and handling equipment. The company provides design, engineering, manufacture, erection, commissioning and after sales service. Zink Körner maintains a worldwide network of branches and licensees.

Zink Körner has launched many pioneering developments during its company history. For example, as early as at the beginning of the 1970s the company built the first automated centrifugal galvanizing plants, which have markedly enhanced the quality of the end products and the energy efficiency of the galvanizing process. The company took another innovative move when it developed dedicated burner technology for hot-dip galvanizing applications.

Zink Körner is a company of the Körner Group, which was established in 1928. Thus the Group builds on more than 80 years of experience in industrial furnace technology and auxiliary equipment.

Within the Group, Wire Körner GmbH designs heat treatment equipment for wire and narrow strip. TVT Kordt GmbH develops plants for thermal process technology, with a focus on industrial furnaces for the heat treatment of steels, special steels and non-ferrous metals.

Zink Körner GmbH
Peter Kordt
Profilstrasse 9
58093 Hagen / Germany
+49.2331.800 6-0
www.koerner-hagen.com
info@koerner-hagen.com

Pressekontakt:
VIP-Kommunikation
Regina Reinhardt
Süsterfeldstrasse 83
52072 Aachen /Germany
reinhardt@vip-kommunikation.de
+49.241.89468-24
http://www.vip-kommunikation.de