The present invention relates to a method and device for 5 clamping the electrode contact shoes around the electrode of an electric furnace, such as an electric arc furnace.

The electrodes of electric furnaces are customarily held by means of electrode contact shoes which grip around the 10 electrode and are clamped against the electrode by means of mechanical devices or devices working by fluid.

In many cases the holder accordingly acts also as a contact shoe and thus transmits the electric current. In 15 present practice the number of contact shoes around the electrode is relatively small. This arrangement has been arrived at because the force clamping the contact shoes against the electrode is produced separately for each individual contact shoe.

20 . *

The clamping force is produced, for example, with the aid of a rubber membrane which is fashioned to fit the contact shoe closely and to which insignificant pressure is applied.

25

Such rubber membranes, however, are costly to manufacture. Their maintenance and installation are troublesome because each one of them requires its own individual hydraulic unit but nevertheless it is not possible to replace one rubber

30 membrane or contact shoe without dismantling the entire pressure ring system. It has not proved possible to seal the gaps between the contact shoes and consequently the hot furnace gases escape through these gaps so that there is an obvious danger of the rubber membranes becoming burnt.

35

OMPI

The contact area between the electrode and the ^" contact shoes through which the current is supplied is often quite small compared with the available area, in other words only a line contact is achieved. As the number of contact shoes is small their size in the vertical direction must be correspondingly greater in order that even with only a line contact a suf¬ ficient flow of current to the electrode is achieved.

An object of this invention is to avoid the drawbacks of prior known devices and to provide a method and device by means of which clamping of the contact shoes to the elec¬ trode is achieved in a simpler and cheaper fashion and by means of which it is simple to replace a single contact shoe and by means of which the system is made tight_. Moreover, by the aid of pressure fluid the. cooling of the contact shoes can be arranged easily.

All the above-mentioned advantages are provided by a method and device, the principal characteristics of which are given in the accompanying patent claims.

The invention is described in more detail with reference to the accompanying drawings, wherein:

Figure 1 is a horizontal cross-sectional view of an elec¬ trode around which are the contact shoes and the pressure element clamping them;

Figure 2 is a vertical cross-sectional view of the pressure ring system surrounding the electrode;

Figure 3 is a developed view of one embodiment of the pressure ring;

Figure 4 is a vertical cross-sectional view of a pressure ring system employing the pressure element of Figure 3; and

Figure 5 illustrates the sealing spring between the contact shoes.

In the device according to the invention the number of contact shoes 2 is increased, and the force clamping the contact shoes to the electrode 1 is achieved by means of a pressure element 3, comprising one part or several parts one above the other, which as one or several uniform rings presses with the same pressure against all the contact shoes.

By means of this uniform pressure element 3 such close contact is obtained between the electrode and the contact shoes that even if the pressure element consists of several parts it can, nevertheless, be served by a single hydraulic unit.

Using the considerably simplified pressure element 3 according to the invention it is also possible to consider¬ ably increase the number of the contact shoes 2. The width of these contact shoes 2 is then correspondingly decreased. As a consequence of their larger number, the size of the contact shoes can be decreased also in the vertical direc¬ tion because with the larger number of shoes more vertical line contacts are obtained than with the smaller number of contact shoes used heretofore. An advantage of the decreas¬ ed size of the contact shoes is that they are considerably easier to manufacture and also that the maintenance and replacement of individual shoes can be carried out even by one man.

The pressure element 3 according to the invention is in its simplest embodiment a tubular pressure element surrounding the contact shoes and into which a hydraulic pressure is introduced. The inlet and outlet ends of the tube are formed to fit one another so closely that also in their region the contact shoes are clamped tightly to the elec- trode. The tubular element may surround the contact shoes 2 in several turns, and it can, if necessary, consist of several different elements. Even in this case the replace-

ment of a defective element is considerably simpler than in prior known devices, in which the rubber membrane is tightly joined to the contact shoe and in which it is necessary to dismantle the whole pressure ring system in order to replace a single membrane.

The fluid by which the hydraulic pressure is produced in the pressure element 3 is circulated and thus serves at the same time to cool the pressure element. In prior known devices the fluid within the rubber membrane is not circulated and so does not provide cooling.

The pressure element 3 according to this invention or one part of said pressure element is easily replaceable, e.g. in the event of a leakage, since the pressure ring system comprising the contact shoes and the pressure element can be lifted up as a whole without dismantling it, and the defective contact shoes or pressure element br some part thereof can then easily be replaced.

Maintenance is simplified if a suction is applied to the pressure element, after which either a contact shoe 2 or some part of the pressure element or the whole element can be replaced.

In Figure 3 a developed view of one particable embodiment of the pressure element is shown. The pressure element 3 forms one double loop for essentially the whole circumfe¬ rence of the electrode. In this case, in a vertical section, cross-sections of both branches of the pressure element, one above the other, are seen, as is illustrated in Figure 4. At the points where the element turns back upon itself and at the inlet and outlet points particular care must naturally be given to the form of the element, since otherwise the clamping force applied to the contact shoes 2 at these points iσht be deficient.

OM

The parts which are important in respect of the sealing of the device are shown in Figures 2 and 5_ In Figure 2 a water-cooled metal structure is shown, denoted by the number 4, which acts as a supporting structure both generally and in particular for the outer circumference of the pressure element 3. To prevent the escape of furnace gases the device is additionally fitted with a water lock, which in Figure 2 is denoted in its entirety by the refer¬ ence number 5. Possible points of leakage are the vertical gaps between the contact shoes 2. The sealing of these gaps is illustrated in Figure 5.

Grooves are made in adjacent contact shoes 2 in the direc¬ tion of their thickness at the position of the pressure element, and in these grooves is fitted a suitably formed flat sealing spring 6 which seals the gap which remains between the contact shoes 2. In this way the leakage between thecontact shoes 2, ^* which was a generally occurring drawback in earlier designs, has also been sealed.