Spiral finned crucible pot

Cite as: AIP Conference Proceedings 1931, 030066 (2018); https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5024125

Published Online: 09 February 2018

Arianto Leman Soemowidagdo, Tiwan, Widarto, and Aan Ardian

AIP Conference Proceedings 1931, 030066 (2018); https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5024125 1931, 030066

© 2018 Author(s).
 Spiral Finned Crucible Pot
Arianto Leman Soemowidagdo1, a), Tiwan 1, b), Widarto1, c), Aan Ardian1, d)
1
Mechanical Engineering Education Department, Faculty of Engineering, Yogyakarta State University
a)
[email protected]
b)
[email protected]
c)
[email protected]
d)
[email protected]

Abstract. Innovation on a crucible furnace to increase its efficiency in aluminum melting has been done. The innovation
was a spiral finned crucible pot. The inclination of the spiral finned was vary of 5, 10, 15, and 20 degrees. The spiral finned
effects was determined from the performance test result. A crucible pot without fin was also tested as a control. The crucible
pot was examined at the same process condition. The crucible pot with the inclined fin of 10 degrees gives an optimum
performance. It gives effective heating rate so that more efficient in LPG consumption. Therefore it saves energy in the
aluminum melting process.

INTRODUCTION
Casting is a process in component making by melt a metal and poured it into a mold. The steps of this process are
pattern making, mold making, metal melting, metal pouring, cleaning and examining the casting product. Melting the
metal is the important step on casting process that done using a furnace. Various furnace can be used to melt the metal
such as crucible, induction, cupola, electric arc and so on. Crucible furnace is the simplest and oldest furnace that still
used until recent time. Based on the energy source, there is three types of crucible furnace, i.e. solid, oil and gas fueled.
[1 – 4]. Liquid petroleum gas (LPG) is one kind of gas energy that widely used as energy source for crucible furnace.
The main feature of crucible furnace is the use of crucible pot. The crucible is the pot that have a wider upper
diameter. It can be made from steel, cast iron graphite, or ceramic. Steel and cast iron usually used to melt a metal that
has low melting temperature such as aluminum. The pot is placed in the furnace on a support block. The crucible
furnace has two holes. The first hole at the bottom side is to input the heat from the energy source, and the other hole
is at the upper side to throw out the combustion waste. The crucible pot shape allows the heat flows smoothly on the
outer wall of the pot from bottom to top. However, there are still difficulties to control the heat flow in the furnace
thus it does not move around the pot perfectly.
The main concern in enhancing the crucible furnace performance is increasing the heat efficiency. Several
innovations to enhance crucible furnaces performance has been done (Table 1). In general, the innovations were
modification combustion system in order to increase the heat efficiency. However, those innovations make the crucible
furnace structures and constructions become complicated. It is difficult to implement, especially for small and middle
industries. A simple construction of combustion system on crucible furnace was introduced by Soemowidagdo [5].
The combustion waste pipe is extended and deflected called economizer (Fig. 1). The diameter of combustion waste
pipe should be same as the diameter of the heat input pipe. This is to maintain the pressure in the furnace chamber
stable. This modification makes heat restrained longer in the furnace. But, this modification does not make the heat
that generated flows around the crucible pot perfectly.

The 3rd International Conference on Industrial, Mechanical, Electrical, and Chemical Engineering
AIP Conf. Proc. 1931, 030066-1–030066-6; https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5024125
Published by AIP Publishing. 978-0-7354-1623-9/$30.00

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 TABLE 1. Innovations to enhance crucible furnaces performance.
Innovation References
Damper to control crucible furnace temperature [6]
Combustion chamber mechanism [7 – 8]
Pipes and damper to control heat [9]
Pipe/s for throw out combustion waste placed near or contact with heat input [10 – 14]
pipe/s to enhance heat efficiency

FIGURE 1. Crucible furnace with economizer [5]

FIGURE 2. The crucible furnace inside construction

In the crucible furnace, the heat is input into the furnace in tangential direction of the furnace wall (Fig. 2), so that
the pot will be surrounded by heat. In fact, the heat only flows in the bottom side of crucible pot. A barrier of refractory
brick should be placed as shown in Fig. 2 in order to maintain the gas burner from turn back pressure of heat flow. It
is clear that the heat flows at the bottom side of the crucible pot and then move up to the combustion waste pipe.
Tanaka et.al. [15] developed a guide way in the inside wall of crucible furnace. This guideway made from cast
refractory. It is surely lead the pressured heat flows around the crucible pot and it has been proven improve the furnace
efficiency. However, there is difficulties in making the guideway. A mold is needed to cast the refractory material to
make this guideway. Precise consideration must be taken to make the mold in order to get the perfect guideway.
This article will discuss a crucible pot with spiral finned to improve the crucible furnace efficiency. The concept
is similar to guideway but the pressured heat will flow around the pot through the spiral fin. The fin is easy to make
since it is made from steel plate that welded to steel crucible pot.

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 EXPERIMENTAL METHODS
The crucible furnace with economizer is used in this study. A gas burner system applicate to burn LPG as the
energy source. The crucible pot made from steel pipe of outside diameter 220 mm with thickness of 8 mm. The height
of the crucible pot is 220 mm. A steel plate of 10 mm thick welded to the bottom side of the pipe. Spiral fin made
from steel plate of 3 mm thick and 40 mm wide and then welded to the crucible pot. The spiral finned crucible pot
design is shown on Fig. 3.

220 mm

220 mm

FIGURE 3. Design of spiral finned crucible pot

The spiral fin made with inclination angle α that vary of 5, 10, 15, and 20 degrees. A crucible pot with no spiral
fin was noted as 0 degree. However, the pot with no spiral fin has a vertical fin made as barrier substituting the barrier
brick. The inclination of the fin was made no more than 20 degrees since it will give only one or two spiral line. This
spiral inclination will determine the spiral pitch and the number of spiral line.
The first step of experiment procedure is weigh 4 kg of aluminum, melted, and let it freeze in the crucible pot. The
second step is weigh the initial weight of LPG. After that, the aluminum that had prepared in the first step is heated
until it is melt. The temperature changes of crucible pot is then recorded every 5 minutes until the aluminum melt.
Finally, weigh the final weight of LPG. LPG pressure, gas valve, and air valve were controlled in similar condition.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The inclination angle of spiral fin directly determines spiral pitch and the number of the fin. Fig. 4 shows that the
increase of inclination angle will increase the spiral pitch and decrease the fin number. This fact means that there is
an optimum condition due to the fin inclination angle. The spiral fin on crucible pot could lead the heat flow from the
gas burner. This was shown by the mark of heat flow on inside furnace wall. The mark of the gas combustion follows
the inclination angle of the fin. The crucible pot with fin angle of 50 has the narrowest pitch. This condition makes the
heat flow from gas burner is not smoothly moving around the crucible pot. The input pipe diameter of 76.2 mm that
wider than the pitch of fin angle of 50 cause the gas burner blast could not completely flow through fin pitch. As a
result, there is some heat does not flow around crucible pot.

(a) (b)
FIGURE 4. Spiral finned crucible pot: (a) inclination angle 100, (b) inclination angle 150

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 Fig. 5 shows the time needed for melting the aluminium. It can be seen that crucible pot with fin inclination angle
of 100 requires 30 minutes to reach 7000 C. This means that crucible pot with fin inclination angle of 100 requires 30
minutes to melt 4 kg aluminium and gives a better heat efficiency. The fin inclination angle of 100 makes heat produced
by gas burner stay longer in the furnace and flow surrounds the crucible pot about twice. This is will heating the
crucible pot faster so that the heat transferred better to the aluminium. On the contrary, the crucible pot with spiral fin
inclination angle of 50 is less efficient in transfer the heat generated by gas burner. According to the explanation above,
narrower pitch fin than the diameter of input pipe cause the flow of heat spread. Some of heat flow follow the spiral
line, but some other move upward directly to the combustion waste pipe through a small gap between the crucible fin
and the inner furnace wall. As the result, not all of heat generated by gas burner stay longer in the furnace to heating
the crucible pot.
Compared to Tanaka et.al [15] that develop a spiral line, called guideway, on the inside wall of the furnace, the
phenomenon in this experiment is different. In the crucible furnace, the generated heat by gas burner is blast by a
blower thus it has pressure. Therefore, the blown heat has a tangential force and it will flowing surround as it is being
retained by the inside wall of the furnace. In Tanaka’s experiment the heat generate by gas burner will heating the
crucible pot wall by convection mechanism and it is transferred to aluminium conductively. It is obvious that some of
heat that flowing surround does not contact with outside crucible pot wall. In this experiment, the fin from steel plate
and the crucible pot heated conventionally and then transferred conductively to the aluminium inside the pot. Thus,
there are much more heat contact with the spiral fin and crucible pot wall. This explain how the spiral fin keep the
heat that were generated longer in the heating chamber of the furnace.

FIGURE 5. Time needed for melting

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 FIGURE 6. Effect of inclination angle fin to melting time

The melting time of crucible pot with spiral fin inclination angle of 150 and 200 is almost same compared to the
crucible pot with 100 inclination angle of spiral fin. However, the experiment for those both variation was started at
about 450 0C. Thus, both of it need less melting time. The crucible pot with spiral fin inclination angle 150 and 200
gives almost same result. According to Fig. 4, the spiral number of the crucible pot with spiral fin inclination angle
15o and 20o almost same. Both have about one spiral of fin. Thus with both of it, the generated heat only about one
time surrounding the crucible pot. It is explaining that both do not give optimum result when used to melt the
aluminium. The effect of inclination angle to melting time is shown in Fig. 6. It is clear that curve of Fig. 6 affected
by spiral pitch and the spiral number.
Observation on color changing of crucible pot during melting process shows that crucible pot with spiral fin
inclination angle of 100 had already turned into red although the inside wall of the furnace has not yet. Furthermore,
for crucible pot with spiral fin inclination angle of 150 and 200 had turned into red while the inside wall of the furnace
also turns into red. This shows that the crucible pot with spiral fin of 100 is more effective in absorbing heat generated
by gas burner. This demonstrates that the crucible furnace efficiency could be improved by adding spiral fin on the
crucible pot. Observation on the crucible pot with spiral fin inclination angle of 50 also appear to be more quickly
turned into red. However, the narrowness of the gap between the fins causes a slight back-pressure on the gas burner.
This condition makes the heat flow which move surround crucible pot become disturbed. Furthermore, some of the
heat move upward directly to the combustion waste pipe as discuss earlier. This explains that the crucible pot with
spiral fin inclination angle of 50 increase slower.

FIGURE 7. LPG consumption

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 Fig. 7 shows the LPG consumption to melt aluminium. It can be seen that the crucible pot with spiral fin inclination
angle of 100 requires less LPG, which is 1,808 kg to melt 4 kg of aluminium. The LPG required by the crucible pot
with spiral fin inclination angle of 150 is almost same, i.e., 1.868 kg. This is related to the melting time. The longer of
melting time, the LPG consumption is increased. However, as it is discussed earlier, on the crucible pot with spiral fin
inclination angle of 150 the experiment start at higher temperature which is about 450 0C. The other variation requires
LPG consumption above 2 kg. This condition shows that it is less efficient. This proves that the addition of the spiral
fin affects the effectiveness and efficiency of the crucible furnace.
However, there is a limitation on this study due to the crucible pot dimension. It has been declared that the
inclination angle of the spiral fin determine the spiral pitch and the spiral number which is based on the discussion
above it is affecting the heat efficiency. According to this, it can be seen that the dimension of the crucible pot, which
that comprises of height and diameter, will also directly determine the spiral pitch and the spiral number. Therefore,
the experiment result of this study is valid only for crucible pot dimension used. Further experiments are needed to
examine the effect of crucible pot dimension variable.

CONCLUSION
The using of spiral finned crucible pot could improve the efficiency of a crucible furnace to melt aluminum. It
reduces the melting time and saves energy in aluminum melting process. The crucible pot with inclined angle fin of
10 degrees gives an optimum performance. It gives effective heating rate so that more efficient in LPG consumption.
However, the crucible pot dimension is also affecting the spiral pitch and spiral number. Thus, the crucible pot
dimension is one factor that should be considered.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors are grateful for the financial support of the Ministry of Research, Technology and Higher Education,
Indonesia. The authors wish to thank to the Dean of Faculty of Engineering Yogyakarta State University for using
facilities of Material and Processing Laboratory.

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