* Walking Beam Furnace * Walking Hearth Furnace * Roller Hearth Tunnel Furnaces for thin slabs * Rotary Hearth Furnaces * Pusher Furnaces

The open hearth furnace.

In 1865, the French engineer Pierre-Émile Martin took out a license from Siemens and first applied his furnace for making steel. Their process was known as the Siemens-Martin process, and the furnace as an "open-hearth" furnace.

over 1.5 metres i would say over 1.5 metres i would say

A walking beam furnace allows the product to be heated from all sides, where a walking hearth furnace only alloys product to be heated from the top and is more suitable for thinner products. There is no major mechanism difference between a walking hearth and a walking beam furnace. For a walking beam furnace, an actual walking beam will lift the product and move it forward. Then the product is lowered onto the stationary beams. While the load is resting on the stationary beams the walking beam moves underneath the product back to the home position ready to perform another walk. Whereas for a walking hearth furnace, portions of the refractory lined hearth are used to raise the product and move it toward the discharge in a walking fashion. Both mechanisms of moving the product to the discharge, are almost identical.