TPT September 2010

I ndustry N ews

Thermal profiling specialist

PHOENIX Temperature Measurement (PhoenixTM), based in Ely, Cambridgeshire, UK, and Bad Oeynhausen, Germany, specialises in designing and producing complete systems for thermally profiling furnaces, finishing ovens and ceramic kilns. Thermal profiling is common practice in many tube manufacturing plants and is achieved by attaching thermocouples to critical points of the product, connecting these probes to a data logger, and by protecting the data logger with a thermal barrier, the whole system can travel through the furnace together with the product. In this way the true product temperature is monitored and stored for later analysis. An area of specialisation for PhoenixTM is designing thermal profiling systems for monitoring the temperature of solid drawn tubing as it is heat treated in walking beam furnaces. In this process the thermal profiling system is often placed inside the tube itself with thermocouples placed into the tube wall along its length. This allows the actual product temperature to be monitored, which would not be possible with trailing thermocouples due to the rotation of the product as it progresses through the furnace. Prior to homogenising, in the drawing operation, the steel billet from which the tube is drawn is reheated in a rotary hearth furnace. PhoenixTM systems can also be supplied to monitor this operation. Here the system is attached to the billet and passed through the reheat furnace while thermocouples buried within the billet collect temperature data to verify the predictions of the controlling mathematical model.

Other tube heat treatment processes that are monitored using these systems include annealing solid drawn and ERW tube in roller hearth furnaces, homogenising ductile iron pipes, and solution treatment of stainless steel tubing. Design of the monitoring system from the thermocouples through to the thermal barrier is critical, as this instrument must maintain a high degree of accuracy while resisting extremes of temperature, atmosphere and pressure. With over 60 years of combined temperature profiling experience, the senior PhoenixTM personnel have a deep understanding of all aspects of the design of products for these industries, and have good knowledge of the processes in which they will be used. Sales directorMichaelTaake commented, “PhoenixTM has evolved to bring innovation, quality and simplicity to the process of thermal profiling and customers can be assured that the profiling systems supplied by PhoenixTM will have true experience designed into them, will be built to the highest quality standards, and will also be easy for operators to use.”

PhoenixTM Ltd – UK Fax: +44 1353 968684

Email: sales@phoenixtm.com Website: www.phoenixtm.com PhoenixTM GmbH – Germany Fax: +49 5734 600441 Email: info@phoenixtm.de Website: www.phoenixtm.de

Solid drawn tubes entering roller hearth furnace with (inset) PhoenixTM TS02 high temperature profiling system

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S eptember 2010

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