JP2008049358A - Induction smelting apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an induction smelting apparatus which suppresses facility investment inexpensively. <P>SOLUTION: The induction smelting apparatus 1 is provided with; a smelting chamber 2, which houses a furnace main body 7 for forming a solidified material 23 of metallic material 6 from the heated and melted metallic material 6; a drawing chamber 3, which is installed at the lower part of the smelting chamber 2 and stores the solidified material 23 drawn out from the furnace body 7; a drawing device 4, which is installed at the lower part of the drawing chamber 3; and a vacuum pump 5, which keeps the respective spaces of the melting chamber 2 and the drawing chamber 3 into vacuum. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2008,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to an induction melting apparatus for casting an ingot by melting metal by induction heating in a reduced pressure atmosphere or a gas atmosphere.

  The induction melting device has a furnace body (water-cooled metal crucible) in which two or more electrically insulated segments are lined up in the circumferential direction of the induction coil through a slit inside the circularly wound induction coil Some have a drawing device (drawing drive device) for drawing a solidified product (ingot) solidified at the bottom of the furnace body downward. In the induction melting apparatus, the furnace body and the drawing apparatus are installed in a vacuum vessel. The inside of the vacuum vessel is kept under vacuum in order to prevent the solidified product from reacting with oxygen in the atmosphere and oxidizing (Patent Document 1).

Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2003-307390 (FIG. 1)

However, in order to install the entire furnace body and the drawing apparatus inside, a vacuum container having a remarkably large volume is required.
And in order to hold | maintain the inside of the vacuum vessel under vacuum, a large sized vacuum pump is needed and an installation cost will increase.

  The main object of the present invention is to provide an induction melting apparatus that keeps facility costs low.

Means for Solving the Problems and Effects of the Invention

  The induction melting apparatus of the present invention includes a melting chamber having a space for housing a furnace body that forms a solidified material of the metal material from a metal material that has been induction-heated and melted, and a solidified material that has been drawn from the furnace body by a drawing device. And a drawing chamber having a space communicating with the space of the dissolution chamber, and holding means for holding each space of the dissolution chamber and the extraction chamber in a reduced-pressure atmosphere or a gas atmosphere.

  According to this, the spaces to be maintained under a reduced pressure atmosphere or a gas atmosphere are only the spaces of the dissolution chamber and the extraction chamber. Therefore, as compared with the case where the space in the vacuum container that accommodates the entire melting chamber and the drawing apparatus is held under a reduced pressure atmosphere or the like, the volume of the space held under the reduced pressure atmosphere or the like can be reduced. Therefore, a large vacuum pump becomes unnecessary, and the equipment cost for maintaining in a reduced pressure atmosphere or a gas atmosphere can be reduced.

  At this time, in the present invention, it is preferable that the drawing chamber is provided with a cooling means for cooling the solidified material therein. According to this, radiant heat from the solidified product can be prevented and the solidified product can be cooled.

  Hereinafter, preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

  FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of an induction melting apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 1, an induction melting apparatus 1 includes a melting chamber 2 that houses a furnace body 7, a drawing chamber 3 installed at the lower part of the melting chamber 2, and a drawing apparatus 4 installed at the lower part of the drawing chamber 3. And a vacuum pump (holding means) 5 for holding each space of the dissolution chamber 2 and the extraction chamber 3 in a vacuum.

  First, the structure of the dissolution chamber 2 will be described. FIG. 2 is a configuration diagram of the furnace body 7. FIG. 3 is a top view of the furnace body 7. As shown in FIG. 1, the melting chamber 2 has a vacuum container 21 connected to a vacuum pump 5. The vacuum vessel 21 contains a water-cooled copper furnace body 7 that contains a metal material to be heated and melted. The furnace body 7 includes a bottom surface portion 8 that forms a bottom portion thereof, to which a starting block 24 to be described later is attached, and conductive segments 10 that are side walls arranged in a circumferential direction forming the outer periphery thereof. . The furnace body 7 may be made of pure copper or copper alloy, gold or silver having a low electrical resistivity, or stainless steel depending on the case.

  As shown in FIG. 2, the bottom surface portion 8 has a trapezoidal cutout on the top surface, and a starting block 24 processed into a shape that fits the cutout is attached. The starting block 24 is made of the same material as the metal material.

  As shown in FIG. 3, the plurality of vertically-divided conductive segments 10 serving as side walls are formed by being insulated from each other in the circumferential direction. Insulation is performed by interposing an insulator between the conductive segments 10 and 10 or isolating the conductive segments 10 and 10.

  The conductive segment 10 forming the side wall has a cooling water passage 11 in which cooling water flows. The cooling water channel 11 is formed from the upper end portion (upper end portion of the side wall) to the lower end portion (lower end portion of the side wall) of the conductive segment 10. Moreover, the cooling water channel 11 is comprised by the outer water channel 11a and the inner water channel 11b, and the outer water channel 11a and the inner water channel 11b are connected in the upper end part. The lower end portion of the outer water channel 11a is connected to the pipe 33 and is connected to a cooling water supply device (not shown). Moreover, the lower end part of the inner water channel 11b is connected to the pipe 34, and is connected to the cooling water supply apparatus. Accordingly, the cooling water supplied from the cooling water supply device is supplied from the lower end portion of the outer water channel 11a via the pipe 33, flows to the upper end portion, then flows into the upper end portion of the inner water channel 11b, and then to the lower end portion. And circulates through the pipe 34 to the cooling water supply device. The circulated cooling water is returned to the cooling water supply device, cooled, and used again as cooling water. In this way, by flowing the cooling water into the cooling water channel 11, the furnace body 7 including the conductive segment 10 is cooled to a predetermined temperature (reaction temperature with the metal material) or lower.

  As shown in FIG. 2, an induction heating coil 12 is provided on the outer periphery of the side wall formed by the conductive segment 10. The induction heating coil 12 is connected to a power supply device (not shown) that can output AC power having an arbitrary frequency. The power supply device supplies AC power to the induction heating coil 12 to inductively heat the metal material.

  The metal material is agglomerated and includes metals selected from iron and non-ferrous metals and alloys thereof, as well as titanium, zirconium, hafnium, chromium, niobium, tantalum, molybdenum, uranium, rare earth metals, thorium, and alloys thereof. A reactive metal can be used.

  The space of the vacuum vessel 21 and the space of the extraction chamber 3 to be described later are in communication with each other, and are kept in vacuum together with the vacuum vessel 21 by a vacuum pump 5 that can reduce the pressure from high vacuum to atmospheric pressure. Note that the vacuum vessel 21 and the extraction chamber 3 may be maintained in a gas atmosphere using a gas supply system or the like instead of being kept under vacuum using the vacuum pump 5.

  Next, the drawing chamber 3 will be described. As shown in FIG. 1, the drawing chamber 3 includes a cylindrical side wall 13 and a circular bottom wall 14 that forms the bottom of the side wall 13. The upper end of the side wall 13 is fixed to the lower surface of the vacuum vessel 21. That is, the space of the extraction chamber 3 is formed by the lower surface, the side wall 13 and the bottom wall 14 of the vacuum vessel 21.

  The bottom wall 14 has a hole 22 formed in the center of the surface, and a pull-out member 28 described later is fitted into the hole 22. Therefore, external air does not enter the drawing chamber 3 from the hole 22.

  The side wall 13 has a cooling water passage 25 (cooling means) through which cooling water flows. A lower end portion of the cooling water passage 25 is connected to the pipe 35 and is connected to a not shown cooling water supply device. Moreover, the upper end part of the cooling water channel 25 is connected to the pipe 36, and is connected to the cooling water supply apparatus. Therefore, the cooling water supplied from the cooling water supply device is supplied from the lower end portion of the cooling water passage 25 via the pipe 35 and flows to the upper end portion, and then circulates to the cooling water supply device via the pipe 36. is doing. The cooling water passage 25 in which the cooling water is flowed can cool the drawing chamber 3 and cool the drawn solid matter (skull) 23 described later. Moreover, the heat radiated | emitted from the solidified material 23 can be absorbed and the radiant heat from the solidified material 23 can be prevented.

  Next, the drawing device 4 will be described. As shown in FIG. 1, the drawing device 4 includes two guide bars 15 extending in a bar shape in the vertical direction, two ball screws 16 extending in a bar shape in the vertical direction, a lifting member 17, and a cylindrical pulling-out device. A member 28 and a carriage unit 19 are provided. An extraction member 28 extending upward is fixed to the center of the elevating member 17, and the upper surface of the extraction member 28 is fixed to the lower surface of the bottom surface portion 8 of the furnace body 7. The elevating member 17 is regulated so as to be movable in the vertical direction by two guide bars 15 at both left and right ends and two ball screws 16 closer to the center than the left and right end portions. The lower ends of the two guide bars 15 and the two ball screws 16 are fixed to the upper surface of the carriage unit 19. Therefore, when the elevating member 17 moves up and down, the pulling member 28 fixed to the elevating member 17 also moves up and down.

  Inside the drawing member 28, two cooling pipes 18 are provided, and cooling water flows. The cooling water flows in the cooling pipe 18 to cool the bottom surface portion 8 of the furnace body 7 from the lower surface.

  In the above configuration, the operation of the induction melting apparatus 1 will be described. First, the starting block 24 is attached to the upper surface of the bottom surface portion 8 of the furnace body 7. Then, a metal material is charged into the furnace body 7.

  The cooling water supply device cools the conductive segment 10 serving as the side wall by flowing the cooling water through the cooling water channel 11 and completes preparation for melting the metal material. Further, the drawing chamber 3 is cooled by flowing cooling water through the cooling water passage 25, and the bottom surface portion 8 of the furnace body 7 is cooled from the lower surface by flowing cooling water into the cooling pipe 18.

  And by supplying with electricity, the induction heating coil 12 is made to output the high frequency alternating current power. When AC power is supplied to the induction heating coil 12, the metal material in the furnace body 7 is melted by induction heating. At this time, a part of the upper surface of the starting block 24 is also dissolved. The lower part of the starting block 24 does not melt because the bottom surface 8 to which the starting block 24 is attached is cooled by the cooling water channel 26. And the melt | dissolved metal material 6 and the melt | dissolved starting block 24 are integrated. Further, when a part of the molten metal material 6 in the furnace body 7 comes into contact with the wall surface of the side wall formed by the conductive segment 10, the metal material 6 is solidified again by the cooling action of the conductive segment 10 which is the side wall. By doing so, the solidified product 23 is formed in a container shape along the side wall.

  Subsequently, in order to pull out the solidified product 23, the elevating member 17 is gradually lowered. The solidified product 23 is pulled out while being formed. That is, the drawing member 28 fixed to the elevating member 17 and the bottom surface portion 8 fixed to the drawing member 28 are also lowered. The solidified product 23 is drawn into a drawing chamber 3 provided at the lower part of the dissolution chamber 2 and cooled by the side wall 13 cooled by the cooling water channel 25.

  Finally, in order to take out the solidified product 23, the lower portion of the vacuum vessel 21 and the fixed side wall 13 are separated. That is, the drawing chamber 3 is separated from the dissolution chamber 2. The pulling chamber 3 is lowered and the carriage unit 19 is moved, whereby the pulling chamber 3 and the pulling device 4 are moved, and the solidified product 23 is taken out from the upper surface.

  As described above, in the induction melting apparatus 1 of the present embodiment, in order to prevent the solidified product 23 from reacting with oxygen in the atmosphere and oxidizing, the space to be kept under vacuum is the melting chamber 2 and the extraction. Only the respective spaces of the chamber 3 are provided. Therefore, compared with the case where the space in the vacuum container which accommodates the whole of the melting chamber 2 and the extraction device 4 is held in vacuum, the volume of the space held under vacuum can be reduced. Therefore, the equipment cost for keeping under vacuum can be reduced.

  The preferred embodiments of the present invention have been described above, but the present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiments, and various modifications can be made as long as they are described in the claims. For example, in the above-described embodiment, the side wall 13 of the drawing chamber 3 has the cooling water passage 25 inside, but may not have the cooling water passage 25. The cooling of the side wall 13 is a water-cooling type using cooling water, but an air-cooling type in which cooling fins are provided and air is applied for cooling.

It is a block diagram of the induction dissolving apparatus which concerns on embodiment of this invention. It is a block diagram of a furnace main body. It is a top view of a furnace main body.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Induction dissolution apparatus 2 Dissolution chamber 3 Extraction chamber 4 Extraction apparatus 5 Vacuum pump 6 Metal material 7 Furnace main body 13 Side wall 14 Bottom wall 21 Vacuum vessel 23 Solidified substance 25 Cooling channel

Claims (2)

A melting chamber having a space for accommodating a furnace body for forming a solidified product of the metal material from the metal material melted by induction heating;
A drawing chamber that communicates with the space of the melting chamber and has a space for accommodating the solidified material drawn from the furnace body by a drawing device;
An induction melting apparatus comprising: holding means for holding each space of the melting chamber and the drawing chamber in a reduced-pressure atmosphere or a gas atmosphere. The induction melting apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the drawing chamber is provided with a cooling unit that cools the solidified material therein.

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