The Challenge

Jupiter Aluminum’s plant manager, Chris Porter, described the situation plainly:

“Time is money, and the longer you’re down, the longer you’re not operating, the more opportunity is lost.”

The 20-year-old reverberatory furnace required complete demolition and replacement. In Jupiter’s experience, this type of work had never been completed in less than four and a half months. Having a major furnace offline for that long threatened to be, in Porter’s words, “catastrophic” for production volumes.

The stakes were clear: the faster the rebuild, the sooner Jupiter could resume making aluminum and every single day of restored production was worth an estimated $500,000 in profit.

Scope of Work

AIS Group, working alongside subsidiaries Elite Industrial and Southern Welding, took on the full scope of the rebuild:

• Demolished the existing furnace structure
• Assisted with fabrication of the new furnace components
• Mechanically erected the furnace, including replacement of all hoods, pumps, and doors
• Installed approximately 300 tons of refractory material inside the furnace
• Conducted 3D scanning of the furnace to identify the low spot in the pump well
• Increased pump well height based on scan data to maximize molten metal capacity
• Performed water modelling to analyze and improve the theoretical flow of molten metal through the furnace geometry
• Coordinated delivery and logistics for the project;100 truckloads of refractory and 20 truckloads of steel assemblies

In Their Own Words

“The installation of the new furnace and the revamped interior has enabled us to improve flow characteristics by almost 20 per cent and boost the melt rate by about 15 per cent — without making any severe changes to the other designs. We had never accomplished work like this in less than four and a half months. AIS changed that.” — Chris Porter, Plant Manager, Jupiter Aluminum

What Made This Exceptional

Unprecedented Speed

The entire project was completed in 55 days and that beat AIS’s own deadline by 5 days, and outpacing Jupiter’s previous best turnaround by over two months. The team worked as soon as permitting was available and maximized time through strategic pre-assembly of components before installation.

Data-Driven Design with 3D Scanning

One of the most impactful innovations on this project was the use of 3D scanning technology to identify the low spot in the furnace’s pump well. This data directly informed a design change: by adding height to the pump well AIS increased the furnace’s metal-holding capacity. The result is that Jupiter can now hold and produce more aluminum per cycle, directly improving profitability every day the furnace runs.

Water Modelling for Flow Optimization

In collaboration with Pyrotek, a molten metal service firm, AIS conducted water modelling to simulate and analyze the flow of molten metal through the furnace. This process allowed the team to refine the furnace geometry prior to construction, leading to a 20% improvement in flow characteristics and a 15% increase in melt rate without significant changes to other design elements.

Scale and Coordination

The sheer logistics of this project were significant: coordinating the delivery of 100 truckloads of refractory material and 20 truckloads of steel assemblies, managing multiple AIS subsidiaries on a live industrial site, and maintaining a zero-incident safety record throughout.

Results & Impact