ALFISO™ Emergency Collecting Pit

The emergency collecting pit is a safety device and is arranged in front of (below) each water-cooled electro-melting and holding furnace. After an accident in the furnace, and if all safety devices and/or control mechanisms have malfunctioned, the emergency collecting pit must be in a position to receive the entire contents of the furnace, and at the same time effectively prevent any contact of molten metal with cooling water.

 

Accident example:
At 20 o'clock, 19th August 2007, a severe accident happed in Weiqiao Aluminium Casting Plant in Shandong Province, China, about 30 tons of molten aluminium flowed outside from the furnace, and contact the water in circulation water tank, caused explosion, 14 people were killed, and 59 people hurt, and extensive structural damage to the facility resulted.

Metal-water explosions (also called steam explosions) in aluminum and other metal-casting have caused numerous injuries and fatalities (and associated damage/destruction of infrastructure) during the past 50 years. The lesson from these cases is that there is a high risk of injury or death at these workplace if there is no preventative solution.

The emergency collecting pit is the solution to avoid such risk.