Water cooled furnace piping query

[justjack]

I deal in electricity, not plumbing, so this may be a dumb question:
I bought a large used vacuum furnace, it floods water through the center of the double wall on both the vessel and the doors to keep the vessel from warping (melting?) at temp. (about 2550 F). The piping was completely disassembled/mangled/incomplete when I bought it, and no prints to go from (this particular machine was plumbed by the customer, so the OEM also has no water system print) When the furnace is not at temp, say between cycles, it also has a hot water recirculating system to melt any residual wax in the vessel and doors (we sinter carbide with a wax binder).With our other smaller furnace we just turn off the incoming cold water and turn on a heater and a recirculating pump(open loop circuit from a small holding tank mounted on the side), gradually the water gets hot enough to do the job.
My question: This thing has a rather large heat exchanger on it, but I can't figure out why; there would be water running on both sides of it, and you can turn the water heater off if you need to, and just run cold through it.
Any ideas?

 

[dcasto]

maybe there were two of these at one time. So one was heating the other was between cycles. The heat generated by the one that was operating was used to melt the wax in the other. That would save running a heater and net save energy.

 

[itsmoked]

Since it is illegal to just run water down drains, etcetera, these days, I would guess the heat exchanger may be a way to to use a cooling tower to remove heat from the water without allowing your internal loop water from mixing with the cooling tower water.

Cooling tower water needs special handling to keep it happy.

Keith Cress
Flamin Systems, Inc.-

http://www.flaminsystems.com

 

[justjack]

Thanks for the posts, gentlemen. Itsmoked, I think you may be on to something, that makes sense. I can run the incoming cooling tower water through the H.E. to cool it back down after the hot water cycle, then just shut it off and let the heater do it's thing when I need hot water again, without needing duplicate plumbing for a cooling loop.
Thanks
Jack Cecil
Machining Technologies, Inc

http://www.machiningtech.com