Fire brick unit
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
     The present invention relates to fire brick units, and more particularly to fire brick units which are arranged to include a plurality of fire bricks, supporting means and suspending means. 
     Conventionally, walls of industrial furnaces, particularly electric furnaces, have been built and dismantled by laying or removing fire bricks manually one by one. This work was time-consuming and very hard in view of bad working conditions, i.e., hot air containing dust. 
     In order to obviate this drawback, methods have been proposed in which a number of fire bricks are assembled beforehand into units or blocks and such units are brought into a furnace by means such as a crane and the units are assembled to build the furnace wall. Such methods were effective to shorten the time required for building a furnace and to lighten the labor. However, in dismantling a furnace, fire bricks are still usually removed one by one with a pick or the like. Also, with this manual method, dismantling could not be started until the furnace had cooled sufficiently. This meant a large time loss. 
     BRIEF SUMMARY OF INVENTION 
     An object of the present invention is to provide fire brick units which facilitate both the building and dismantling of a furnace wall. 
     The present invention consists in fire brick units comprising a plurality of fire bricks, supporting means at bottom thereof, and suspending or lifting means at rear thereof. 
     Other features and objects of the present invention will become apparent from the following description taken with reference to the accompanying drawings. 
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS 
     FIG. 1 is a perspective view of one embodiment of the fire brick unit according to this invention; 
     FIG. 1a is an exploded view of the embodiment of FIG. 1; 
     FIGS. 2, 3 and 3a are similar views of other embodiments; and 
     FIGS. 4, 5 and 6 are perspective views of another group of embodiments including suspending means both on the front and rear thereof. 
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
     In any of the embodiments, the fire brick unit generally designated by numeral 1 includes a plurality of fire bricks 2, supporting means 3 and suspending or lifting means 4. 
     Referring to FIG. 1, a fire brick unit 1 has a plurality of fire bricks 2 laid one upon another on a supporting member 3a of L-section to which are secured two vertical suspending or lifting members 4a. A plurality of such units 1 are assembled to form a furnace wall. 
     FIG. 2 shows another embodiment which employs supporting means comprising a plate-like member 3b and suspending means comprising a chain member 4b. 
     FIG. 3 shows another embodiment in which the supporting means is in the form of a member 3c to which are secured the suspending members 4a. 
     Preferably, the fire bricks 2a to be placed at the bottom of the unit have one or more portions chamfered as best shown in FIGS. 1a and 3a so as to fit snugly on the supporting member 3 and thereby eliminate any gaps which would be otherwise formed between the lowermost bricks and the floor which might allow the leakage of molten steel out of the furnace. 
     The fire bricks 2 may be held together in any suitable manner, for example, by adhering them together with an adhesive, by using angle irons 5 and/or band irons 6 (FIG. 5), by laying them in a casing, or by combining two or more of these methods. 
     The supporting means 3 should be disposed at the rear of the fire brick unit, namely, at the outer side of the furnace to prevent contact with steel bath or slag. 
     The suspending means 4 is secured to the supporting means 3 as by welding in these embodiments. With the plate-like members 4a, two or more are preferably provided for greater stability. If a chain (or wire) member 4b is employed as the suspending means, it is preferably disposed at the rear of the unit for the same reason as above and is adapted to be pulled out when needed. 
     When building or dismantling a furnace, the fire brick units 1 are carried into or out of the furnace, the suspending means 4 being suspended by means of a crane or the like. This greatly facilitates and speeds up the work over the conventional process. 
     In some cases, suspending the fire brick unit 1 by only the suspending means provided at rear thereof is unstable. Therefore, the suspending means are preferably provided at both at rear and front thereof, as with the embodiments of FIGS. 4, 5 and 6. 
     FIG. 4 shows a variation of the embodiment of FIG. 1 having the supporting member 3a and the suspending members 4a both at the rear and front of the unit. These members at the front (that is, the side facing the inside of the furnace) are adapted to be removed after the furnace has been built. 
     FIG. 5 shows a variation in which the fire bricks 2 are held together by means of an angle iron 5 and band irons 6 passing around the block of fire bricks. This embodiment has the suspending means 4, comprising two L-shaped metal fittings 7, fixedly embedded between the fire bricks at the front side thereof. 
     FIG. 6 shows a further variation which has two recesses 8 formed in the front side of the unit to serve as suspending means. The claws of a crane or the like are hooked therein. 
     While preferred embodiments have been described, it is to be understood that changes may be made within the scope of the following claims.