EUROPEAN STEEL TECHNOLOGY AND APPLICATION DAYS 2017 - ESTAD 2017

In metallurgical plants you will find lots of areas with dust, smoke gases and easily accessible liquid steel. To carry out manual work in this environment is very dangerous and should be avoided. Nowadays more and more manipulators and robotic solutions are used to substitute tasks in hazardous areas. One example for such a dangerous work is tap-hole-opening in electric arc furnaces. Usually this is done by using an oxygen lance burner which is held to the tap-hole. In this case the operator has to stand directly next to the dangerous tap-hole area. Due to the weight of the lance, sometimes 2 persons have to work in the exposed area. This paper describes the full versatile Primetals LiquiRob system and its new developed feature “tap-hole-opening for EAF”. The robot is used as elongated hand of the operator. Heavier lances can be manipulated, since there are no work safety restrictions for the robot, this means, more energy for the burning process is available, which significantly increases the opening rate. While the operator stands in a safe distance, he can guide the burning lance with the robot precisely to the tap-hole. Using a CCTV system, this job can be done even from the control room. First operational results from oxygen lance operations in similar areas are presented.