INFLUÊNCIA DA TEMPERATURA DE STARTUP NA EFICIÊNCIA ENERGÉTICA DE FORNOS PARA FORJAMENTO DE PEÇAS DE AÇO

Abstract

This study was conducted in a metallurgical industry sector to evaluate the energy efficiency of industrial furnaces used in forging steel parts. The natural gas consumption was studied relative to the amount of forged steel parts by analyzing the energy efficiency of the process in two distinct levels of temperature initiation from the heating cycle: temperatures above 800 ° C and temperatures up to 300 º C. The assessing of the energy efficiency of the process was conducted with the use of physical-thermodynamic indicators. The values of consumption of natural gas were converted into energy values in order to obtain physical-thermodynamic, indicators which were arranged in graphical form for trend analysis. At the end of the study was possible to evaluate the possible points of liable to operational improvement and define the actions to increase energy efficiency during the furnace loading of steel parts. Key words - energy efficiency, furnace, heating cycle, startup temperature.