A Thermal Engineer's View of an Arc Furnace: Survey of Some Heat Problems in Arc Furnaces

The art of building and operating electric furnaces is based on the application of four fields of applied science : metallurgy, electrical engineering, ceramics, and heat transfer. Although the last field is usually overlooked and receives only scant recognition in literature, it is quite important for successful and efficient operation of arc furnaces. This is particularly true in connection with the vital problem of how to increase the steel output from a given arc furnace. No attempt is made to give a solution of the problem of increasing production from arc furnaces, but rather to outline the problems from a thermal viewpoint; and, of course, formulation of a problem goes a long way towards its solution.