An Experimental Method to Decrease Heating Time in a Commercial Furnace

The aim of this article is to present an experimental method to optimize the heating time in a furnace in order to show an example of the progression toward increasingly empirical solutions as the problems become progressively more unwieldy. During this experimental study, different cases are carefully chosen to compare and measure the effects of applying different enhancement methods of the heat transfer processes. It is found that changing the inner geometry by introducing radiant panels inside the heated chamber leads to important time savings in the heating process by increasing the convection rate in the furnace.