EUROPEAN STEEL TECHNOLOGY AND APPLICATION DAYS 2017 - ESTAD 2017

For the process of obtaining steel, pig iron produced in the blast furnace must be treated by a series of transformations called refining. Torpedo ladles carry melted pig iron at temperatures around 1500-1650°C form the blast furnace to the steel mill through a railroad. Generally, the refractory lining of the torpedo has three layers with silicon carbide bricks in the working lining which is in contact with melt pig iron and therefore suffers high wear. As coating thickness decreases, partial repairs are made with refractory concrete to increase the torpedo lifetime. In this sense, PASEK is a manufacturer and supplier of these products, and also has the required equipment and staff to do the maintenance of torpedo ladles. Working in continuous improvement, in the last time, PASEK has been development a range of silicon carbide shotcrete refractory concretes for torpedo repairs, which increase the lining performance and thus decreasing the number of needed repairs, optimizing operation costs. Silicon carbide hardness gives high abrasion and shock resistance to the concrete, resulting in excellent thermo-mechanical properties at high temperature. Finally, in order to reduce energy costs and optimize safety during concrete drying, PASEK goes one step further with the installation by shotcrete of non cement, silicon carbide based concrete. This technology known as PASEK FASTDRY (FD) decreases the drying time in more than 60%, significantly reducing energy costs associated, thereby improving material hot properties and increasing the lining efficiency. Analysing the life of torpedo ladle lining, the number of repairs and quantity of refractory use to make the repairs, it is possible to obtain a comparative between the cost of refractory lining with dry or wet gunning.