7TH EUROPEAN COKE AND IRONMAKING CONGRESS - ECIC 2016

Critical to any blast furnace campaign is the quality of the cooling system design. Over the many years of blast furnace history, cooling systems have evolved and changed to give an optimum design that provides long campaign life balanced against cost. In recent years, the latest evolution of the cooling system design, in the shape of the copper stave, has been seen as state of the art and an established feature on a large number of furnaces around the world. When first put forward, the copper stave was marketed as the ultimate cooling element since it not only provided a cooling function but also self-protected by forming an accretion layer. More recently, on some furnaces that have copper staves in their design, significant problems have arisen during operation, causing premature failure of the staves and reduced campaign life. This paper will review the evolution of the copper stave design and illustrate the latest techniques being applied by Primetals Technologies in this critical area of blast furnace design.