blast furnace
3
5.6
- noun
- /blæst ˈfɜrnɪs/
- Specialized
:
alto horno
- According to his own account, Neilson's first study of blast furnaces was stimulated when an ironmaster consulted him in 1824 on whether the air blast to a furnace might be purified.
- blast furnace operation
The last the last steel blast furnace in Britain is shutting down.
- The last the last steel blast furnace in Britain is shutting down.
Examples
-
Also, Russian engineers completely overhauled a giant blast furnace at the Karachi Steel Mill at a cost of $4.8 million U.S.
Academic text (2003) -
The workers carefully monitored the temperature inside the blast furnace to ensure the iron was extracted properly.
-
Remember, I used to build blast furnaces for a living.
-
I take it you have never worked on a blast furnace or part of our manufacturing industry.
Blog text (23) -
The last the last steel blast furnace in Britain is shutting down.
-
His capabilities and experience accelerated the development of modern blast furnaces, iron and steel processing equipment, and environmental improvements.
Academic text (1998) -
Going back further, who thought up the blast furnace which had the capacity to make the modern day steel, the steel needed for the rails of the railroad?
-
To explain the nature of that discovery, Follett described the basic operation of a blast furnace with the aid of a diagram and a model of a set of bellows of the type used to generate the blast, a blast that, before Neilson's discovery, was, of course, a cold one.
Academic text (2016) -
The counsel for the defendants sought to undermine Graham's credibility by peppering him with questions concerning the size and shape of blast furnaces and the quantity of blast required.
Academic text (2016) -
Neilson claims that this latter idea was suggested by an observation by James Ewing of the Muirkirk Ironworks, who had found that one of his blast furnaces, which was about a half-mile away from the blowing engine, did not work as well as the furnaces located near the source of the blast.
Academic text (2016)
Synonyms
93
4.1
A closed chamber that makes very high heat for melting metal, burning waste or heating buildings
How Big
- Specialized
4
7.6
- Specialized
3
5.6
- Specialized
69
5.4
Surface Forms
Morphology
The compound is directly built from 'blast' (a strong gust or forced flow of air) + 'furnace' (an enclosed heating device), so the basic meaning — a furnace that uses blasts of air — is transparently derivable from the parts. While the full technical sense (iron extraction) is domain-specific, a B1 learner who knows both constituents will readily infer it denotes a type of furnace employing a forced air blast.
Etymology
The noun blast furnace comes from the machine's two parts: a strong blast of 'hot air' is blown into a deep furnace, a very hot 'oven' that helps melt iron ore. That's why blast furnace means the large industrial oven where iron is made.