March 15-19, 2026 | San Diego Convention Center and Hilton San Diego Bayfront
TMS 2026 Annual Meeting & Exhibition
March 15-19, 2026 | San Diego Convention Center and Hilton San Diego Bayfront
San Diego, California, USA | #TMSAnnualMeeting
Exhibition
Booth 504
Monday, March 16, 2026 – 11:00 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.
Tuesday, March 17, 2026 – 11:00 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.
Wednesday, March 18, 2026 – 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.
εMAXXX™ Paper
Session:
Melt Processing, Casting and Recycling: Furnace Technologies & Process Optimization
Sponsored by: TMS Light Metals Division, TMS: Aluminum Committee
Session Start
Thursday 8:30 AM – March 19, 2026
Room: 33A
Location: SDCC
Paper Information
9:20 AM
High Emissivity Refractory for Aluminum Melting Furnace: Geoff Perdue1; Edward Williams2; Brent Mydland2; Calen Kirkpatrick2; 1Wahl Refractory Solutions; 2Arconic
In a natural gas fired reverberatory melting furnace, the process of delivering energy to the charge to be melted is dependent on the refractory inside the furnace to reradiate energy from the flame to the charge. An innovative way to improve the efficiency of the process is to increase the emissivity of the refractory above the charge to increase the energy transfer. A new patent pending refractory material εMAXXX™ supplied by Wahl Refractory Solutions with higher emissivity (0.80-0.95) than typical refractory materials has been installed in the roof of a conventional batch production round top aluminum melting furnace. After several months of operation, the furnace has shown an improvement in total cycle energy efficiency of 0.9% and a melt rate improvement of 4.7%.