7TH EUROPEAN COKE AND IRONMAKING CONGRESS - ECIC 2016

JSW Steel Ltd. Vijayanagar works is an integrated steel plant with installed crude steel production capacity of 12 MTPA. Blast furnace III & IV are two large furnaces with annual production capacity of 3 MTPA each. JSW has been successfully operating these large furnaces at productivity > 2.80 t/m3/day at slag rate of 400 kg/thm. This paper focuses on the process improvements and technological...

Over the past years, several factors such as weak demand, high raw material costs and global overcapacity have exerted unprecedented pressure on steel producers around the world. The liquid section of the steel plant, and the blast furnace in particular, covers a substantial part of the overall production cost. This article discusses a scenario for sustainable hot metal production under...

Utilization of small coke (nut coke) in the blast furnace was carried out to improve the permeability in the lower part of the blast furnace. However, at high small coke rates, it was thought that some small coke continues to exist in the lower part of the blast furnace because the small coke charging rate is larger than the gasification reaction rate of the small coke in the blast furnace....

Metallurgical coke samples were retrieved from the tuyere drilling of an operating blast furnace. These were analysed using a novel fractographic approach to identify and quantify the various coke failure mechanisms. This allowed for quantification of the factors contributing to the strength of the coke through analysis of coke fracture faces. Tuyere level cokes were found to display different...

Modern Blast Furnace Ironmaking units are usually equipped with a high level of process automation, process control and operator advisory. The advantages of such systems have been widely discussed and confirmed by operators from around the world. Where Level I and possibly Level II automation systems were implemented early when such systems were available, upgrading these systems to more...

This paper describes optimization of the charging process of blast furnace No.1 at Kosaya Gora Iron Works (Tula, Russia) producing nodular pig iron with many restrictions on impurities. Focus is on the unconventional operation with 100% acid pellets and various methods for lining protection against the aggressive action of Wüstite-rich primary slag by means of top charging control. Along with...

Novel measurement systems for gauging the full three-dimensional burden surface and the two-dimensional top gas temperature distribution in a blast furnace in real time with an update period of a few seconds are presented in this paper. An introduction to the radar imaging principle for burden surface measurement and the fast acoustic tomography system for temperature distribution...

During the short 179 week 4th campaign of Redcar blast furnace, persistent cash constraints led to a number of compromises concerning the limits of raw material quality and composition, particularly for high PCI rate operation. At the modest productivity required, high coke quality enabled low fuel rate, high PCI operation at a relatively high lump ore proportion. Poor quality coke led to a...

The impact from lance design, blast parameters and type of injection materials on combustion conditions in the raceway have been investigated both theoretically and in operational injections tests in the LKAB Experimental BF (EBF). A CFD model for the EBF is developed and the modelling results validated with experimental data deduced from additional monitoring devices including high-speed...

Novolipetsk Steel is the key company within NLMK Group. The company includes all steelmaking and servicing facilities. Iron ore raw materials and fluxes for sinter production are delivered from mining and concentration plants of the Group. Coke at the company and at Altai-Koks - the Group’s plant - is produced from purchased coal. In order to improve competitiveness, starting from 2013 at all...

Improved coke and sinter quality have facilitated an intensification of the blast furnace (BF) operation due to higher gas top pressure, blast rate and blast oxygen content, as well as the flow rate of injected fuel. Specific BF productivity has increased 15-30% accompanied by a reduction in fuel rate. The increased gas intensity of melting has facilitated faster indirect wustite reduction...

In this paper, the investigation on erosion of hearth sidewall lining of 3BF(campaign life of 19 years) and 4BF(campaign life of 9 years) at Baosteel and analysis of erosion reasons have be done. The paper expatiated the production techniques and maintaining measures to control rising hearth sidewall temperature and erosion of large size blast furnaces at Baosteel, such as improving...

Back in 1991 voestalpine Stahl Linz, an Austrian integrated steel producer, and Primetals Technologies, a metallurgical plant builder and engineering company from Linz, Austria, joined forces and started the development of an integrated process optimization system for blast furnaces. This cooperation resulted in the successful development of a closed-loop expert system for blast furnaces which...

Tata steel Indian Blast Furnaces are started using pellet in burden since April 2012. This was the first time to switch from sinter and lump ore to sinter, lump ore and pellet in burden. Several operational issues faced during early days with charging pellet, raising pellet percentage and deciding its chemistry. The paper is an attempt to show operational hurdles faced and count measures...

Assessment of the structural behaviour of the hearth refractory system in the design or repair stage can reduce risks associated with design innovations and hearth modifications. Information such as likely cracking and gap formation locations can be used to optimize the hearth bricking pattern, materials, and expansion allowances, and better interpret thermocouple data by considering changes...

For optimal blast furnace control, suitable measurement and monitoring systems are required. This paper focuses development and implementation of 3 new measurement devices and methods at ROGESA in Dillingen: 1) sonic gas temperature measurement, 2) a camera-based monitoring system at tuyere level, and 3) EMF and strain gauge measurement to determine the liquid level in the hearth of the...

Intensive operation of blast furnace allows increase in production of hot metal and profitability of Iron & Steel Works. However, blast furnace life could be sacrificed if no measures are taken to protect refractory lining and to build stable accretion. CherMK and Hatch developed a systematic approach to monitor conditions of BF hearth lining using Acousto Ultrasonic-Echo (AU-E)...

The overall carbon rate supplied by coke and supplemental fuels is proposed as the parameter for energy efficiency estimation. The following measures ensure high energy efficient operation of blast furnace, operating with titania-magnetite burden: maximum possible top pressure; optimal slag composition; usage of special fluxes; maximum intensity of blast furnace operation; optimal distribution...

The optimization model of optimal allocation of supplemental fuel and oxygen resources amongst blast furnaces in a blast furnace shop taking into account the change in smelting parameters was developed. This model allows to predict parameters of injected fuel efficiency for individual blast furnace in various technological situations. The model considers the static characteristics describing...

The present study deals with the analysis of blast furnace hot wind pressure data representing the wind throughput. In the frequent event of temporary tuyere blockages the flow rates for the affected tuyere section is reduced and is thus recognizable in the pressure signals. In case when the blockages last for a longer time, additional fuel supplies like pulverized coal injection (PCI) must be...

In November 2014 the pulverized coal injection (PCI) at blast furnace A in Linz was started followed by the coal injections into blast furnace 5 and 6 in February 2015. Up to this moment reducing agents like heavy oil, crude tar, coke oven gas, waste plastics and natural gas have been injected into the three blast furnaces (BFs). Due to the limited space around the BFs it was decided to...