Furnace Muffle Failure Culprit: Poor Design

Furnace muffles are one of the key components in your manufacturing process. As a maintenance manager or process engineer, you want to get as much life as possible from your muffle. Prematurely pulling a muffle out of service for any reason causes disruption and lost revenue for your company.

While there are several reasons why furnace muffles fail, in this post we’ll dive into the reasons related to poor design.  

The design of the furnace muffle ultimately determines the cost and its lifespan. As with anything in life, you get what you pay for.  Cutting corners in the design and welding aspect might reduce the initial investment, buy you’ll run the risk of a shorter life span if it isn’t designed correctly.  

Every furnace muffle is different depending on the furnace and its application. But in our experience, we’ve seen several design factors that are universal and should not be overlooked.  

Materials Selection 

The material used in the creation of a muffle is an important factor. Different furnace applications require the use of different materials. We are proponents of evaluating the material of a failed muffle in order to understand what might have gone wrong and what material is best moving forward.   

We’ve also seen failures that result from a muffle designed with an incorrect thickness.  What often occurs is the customers original muffle was either too thick or thin, and so they overcompensate in the other direction.  Remember that in many instances, less is more! The solution might be a different material selection, or a slightly different design and welding technique.   

Whether the material is stainless steel, nickel base alloys, carbon steel or other bi-metal composites, it’s important that you select the best option and design it correctly for your application.  

Welding Capabilities 

In order to make a quality muffle that’s going meet or exceed it’s expected lifespan, the use of different rolling, forming and welding technique are very important.  A muffle that’s cheaper and manufactured faster can be indicative of a poorly design product.   

Yes, it might take longer to properly weld a muffle to our exact specifications, but that’s what helps ensure the highest quality, most durable continuous furnace muffle. 

Proper Corrugation  

Building on the idea of proper welding techniques, the style of corrugation also matters. We’ve developed a signature corrugation style that when combined with the right welding expertise helps ensure a durable muffle. 

As a consumable product that needs maintenance and eventual replacement, you want to make sure your next muffle investment is a wise one. Designing the optimal muffle for your needs should include a discussion about material selection, muffle profile, and corrugation.

Alloy Engineering offers muffles in a variety of application-specific configurations. To learn more, contact us here or call us at 440.243.6800.