Production Line Burner Upgrade

Department: Industrial Heating

Market: Process Heating, Specialty Coatings

Timeline: 3 Weeks

Location: York Pa

Walton & Company provides service and new equipment for industrial customers in central Pennsylvania and Maryland that use various types of industrial heating equipment. One such customer has been producing glazed face concrete masonry units in York, PA for over 30 years. They are one of very few manufacturers of this type of product in the United States. A glazed CMU, or prefaced, concrete masonry unit (CMU) is a prefabricated concrete block with a permanent colored facing that is bonded to the top or bottom of the CMU.
The customer’s plant has three manufacturing lines with radiant heat tunnel ovens that cure the glazed face CMU’s. The longest and most automated line in the facility, the stretcher line produces the greatest amount of product in the facility. It was twenty years since any significant update was performed on the production line and the existing heating system fell into a serious state of disrepair. The production line’s burners and controls had become worn, were very unreliable and caused significant loss of production through unexpected downtime. Additionally, the burners would not light reliably and posed a serious safety issue every time the line was started.
The Walton Solution
Design and install a new radiant heating system with four independently controlled heating zones. Each zone includes new mixing systems which deliver a pre-mixture of natural gas and air to a single row of high-density flux infrared burners that heat the glazed CMU’s as they travel through the tunnel oven. To complement the new heating system, Walton & Company designed and built a new combustion control panel which included digital temperature controls, flame supervisory controls with annunciators, and a programmable logic controller to provide specific alarms in the event of a problem with the new heating system.
The new system, designed and installed by Walton & Company has resulted in a production line with greater reliability and has reduced downtime. Improvements to the other two lines are slated for the future.

Industrial Heating: Design, Build, Install & Service

Our team of engineers, designers, experienced fabricators and trained installers can develop and implement a solution for all types of industrial heating applications for your facility. Whether it’s a batch oven, conveyor oven, baking oven or dryer, Walton & Company’s experienced design team will work with you to customize a solution that operates efficiently and safely while meeting your production demands.

•New Ovens •Dryers & Furnaces •Burner Retrofits •Combustion System Safety Audits