Hatch wins Metsoc Innovation Award for state-of-the-art furnace inspection and monitoring technology
Toronto, Canada—Hatch has received an Innovation Award from the Canadian Institute of Mining’s (CIM) Metallurgy and Materials Society (MetSoc) for the Acousto Ultrasonic-Echo (AU-E) Non-Destructive Testing technique. The award recognizes an outstanding development in the metals industries, particularly an innovation that has been implemented and that has greatly improved technology practice.
AU-E is an outstanding innovation with significant cost and safety benefits. The technology uses stress wave reflections to provide insight into the condition and thickness of a furnace wall and refractory lining. This provides operators with an accurate, real-time understanding of the condition of the furnace, and can proactively identify areas that require repair. Periodic AU-E inspections can be used to better plan and prioritize furnace maintenance and shutdowns, prolonging furnace campaign life and reducing unwanted downtimes.
Since first being developed in the early 2000s, it has been employed in more than 170 major commercial furnaces around the world for numerous commodities, including non-ferrous and precious metals, iron and steel, and non-metals like glass and alumina.
This technique is another example of how Hatch is delivering exceptional ideas that are solving some of the world’s toughest challenges and doing so in a safe, innovative, and sustainable way. Hatch is the only company in the world to provide this type of service and technology.