Heat transfer to a moving wire immersed in a gas fluidized bed furnace

In order to replace hazardous molten lead baths in the heat treatment of carbon steel wire with environmentally friendly fluidized bed furnaces a better understanding is needed of their heat transfer rates. There has been considerable work done in examining heat transfer rates to large cylinders immersed in fluidized beds, and some on wire sized ones as well, but all previous studies have been conducted on static cylinders. In order to gain a deeper understanding of heat transfer rates to a moving wire immersed in a fluidized bed furnace an apparatus has been constructed to move a wire through a fluidized bed. The heat transfer rates were calculated using the difference in inlet and outlet temperatures, wire speed and the bed temperature. As predicted, correlations for static wire were found to under-predict heat transfer rates at higher wire speeds, so a new correlation was developed by modifying an existing one.