EUROPEAN STEEL TECHNOLOGY AND APPLICATION DAYS 2017 - ESTAD 2017

Hot Blast Stove Technology has been developed to such an extent that low cost hot metal production for over 30 years without major repairs has become achievable, making the decision for a campaign length between 5 to over 30 years a design choice for the plant owner/operator. Some of the earlier examples of designs capable of such long campaign lengths are currently close to the 50th year of their running campaign. These examples are found especially in Europe and North America. This article discusses operational and maintenance experiences over these exceptionally long campaigns as well as a number of approaches towards campaigns extension of hot blast stoves individually and hot blast systems in their entirety. Recent experiences such as post mortem findings after such long campaigns and hot intermediate repairs, while keeping the majority of the system at operating temperature, are also discussed.