IMFLEX furnace technology: improving drastically heating efficiency in wire heat treatment

As 2025 draws to a close, FIB extends its warmest holiday greetings to partners and clients worldwide. Inspired by the precise control of combustion and flow achieved in IMFLEX annealing and patenting furnaces, the company wishes its network a balanced, efficient, and energy-filled year ahead.

IMFLEX concept and design philosophy

For several years, FIB has been supplying its open fired IMFLEX furnace worldwide with great success. IMFLEX stands for IMprove FLow EXchange, a name that directly reflects the core philosophy behind this latest generation of open-flame gas-fired furnaces equipped with FIB premix burner technology.

CFD-driven performance optimization

The IMFLEX furnace was developed based on extensive CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) studies, aiming to optimize the flow of combustion gases inside the furnace and to significantly improve the heat exchange between flue gases and the wires. This optimized flow design leads to a higher and more uniform heat transfer, resulting in reduced gas consumption, improved heating homogeneity, and enhanced metallurgical treatment quality.

Applications and furnace construction

IMFLEX furnaces are used for a wide range of wire heat treatment processes, including annealing, patenting, and, in parallel, desoaping operations. The furnace design combines refractory bricks, castable concretes, insulation panels, and dedicated high-temperature materials. This unique insulation ensures both excellent thermal resistance and long service life, even under demanding industrial operating conditions.

Very recently, FIB sold two latest-generation Annealing / Patenting IMFLEX furnaces in Italy. One of these furnaces is already in operation, while the second unit is scheduled to start production in early 2026. Initial operating results from the first installation are highly promising: at equivalent production rates and identical product quality, the customer has already observed a gas consumption reduction of nearly 20%, representing a very substantial energy saving.

Industry 4.0 compliance and automation

These Italian IMFLEX furnaces have been designed to fully comply with the strict requirements of Italy’s Industria 4.0 framework, combining advanced automation, safety, and digital monitoring. Each furnace is equipped with:

• Full electric ignition of all burners
• Flame supervision using FIB’s latest S-UV technology
• Individual burner control units meeting the most recent safety standards
• A state-of-the-art PLC and HMI system, ensuring precise process control, high operational ergonomics, intuitive operator interfaces and remote diagnostics 

• Continuous atmosphere monitoring in each furnace zone, guaranteeing consistently high product quality with motorized mixer to control accurately the air/gas ratio

With IMFLEX, FIB demonstrates how advanced combustion technology, CFD-driven furnace design, and Industry 4.0 integration can be combined to deliver energy efficiency, process reliability, and top-level metallurgical performance for modern wire heat treatment lines.