Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Smallvolume blastfurnaces —
A. V. Ershov, O. V. Golubev, P. I. Chernousov the future of blastfurnace
National Research Technological Institute
“Moscow Institute of Steel and Alloys” practice?
New structural scheme of ferrous metallurgy nace crosssection which eventually led to cast iron composi
tion when tapped from different tap holes.
n the past century, the ferrous metallurgy developed 3. The lateral dimension increase led to oxidation zone
11
CIS Iron and Steel Review · 2009
The increased number of minimills along with micro iron /day). Furthermore there were numerous research works
metallurgy affects the problem of blast furnace volume solution. on the new technology of cupola furnaces smelting by using
Steel on minimills is generally obtained in EAF (DC or oxygen enriched blast, and obtaining pig iron from various
AC). The raw materials generally consist of steel scrap, and ferrous waste metal. As a result, few new metallurgical
direct reduced iron (sponge iron and prereduced iron pellets). processes such as OxiCup, MROCF, KSK и Star originated:
Historically, the steel manufacture in EAF is associated with — OxiCup or “oxygen cupola furnace” works on oxy
low quality steel manufacture for longlength manufactured genrich blast;
articles. Nowadays, minimills (in connection with modern — MROCF (Multiroleoxygen Cupola Furnace) and
metallurgical technology of thin slabs casting) proceed to KSK (KreislaufgasSauersoffKupolofen) – cupola furnaces
highquality steel production. with a gas recirculation system for complete silty material
As it is known, in EAF process the common iron sources recycling process, that is injected trough tuyeres;
are: steel scrap, sponge iron (pellets) and hot briquetted — Star — cupola furnace with doublelevel tuyere injec
sponge iron. For highgrade steel manufacture, and for hot tion system for steel smelting, rolling and pickling dusts
rolled steel strips it is necessary to use highquality steel scrap. alongside with slimes in hot blast stream.
Alongside, liquid conversion pig iron offers several At the Atlanta (US) conference that took place in
advantages over high grade steel scrap and over scrap substi November 1999 [4] “Minimills with complete cycle in the
tutes. Lack of unwanted impurities such as copper, tin, new millennium” it was mentioned that under modern cir
chrome and nickel, guarantees constant high quality of metal cumstances the competitive ability of metallurgical enterpris
products. es will be defined by raw material consumption and product
Some other advantages of liquid conversion pig iron nomenclature. For competitive ability it is necessary to have
(when compared to steel scrap) are: high heat content and at least 5 shaft furnaces of different efficiency.
“chemical heat” of carbon and silicon that ranges from about In particular the transition to primary metal production
60% of liquid iron sensible heat. Hence, when using liquid by using at least 2 CBF or MBF, and at least 2 cupola fur
iron, the consumption of electric energy in steel industry naces with different efficiency was discussed. In such a man
decreases. ner, one may state that the prevailing technology in the past
According to [1], when using 40 % of conversion pig 15 years was the development of pigiron obtainment in small
iron the EAF productivity increases by 30 % and the energy volume blast furnaces and cupola furnaces. Some specialists
usage decreases by 36 %. The tapping rate increases and the believe, that this tendency will be prevailing for the next
electrode consumption decreases. 50 years.
In 1990’s the demand in cheap liquid conversion iron New generation smallvolume shaft furnaces are mostly
and solid cold pigiron that was smelted in comparatively found in Brazil, India, Indonesia and China. In china (2003),
small quantities for numerous minimills led to the develop BF with the working volume of less then 500 m3 produced
ment of pig iron smelting practice in small volume shaft about 30 Mtpa of pig iron (i.e. over 20% of all the pigiron
furnaces. produced in the country). Table 2 shows the number of oper
The demand for small quantities of liquid conversion ating MBFs in various countries with the working volume
pigiron led to the reduction of smelting process develop ranging from 100 to 500 m3. It should be noted that not all the
ment. The traditional blastfurnace process quickly adapted small volume furnaces are registered. Therefore table 2 is
to this demand. According to modern trends [2–5], small incomplete. Among the mentioned blast furnaces over 400
volume blast furnaces (that were constructed for minimills are simply traditional smallvolume blast furnaces. An MBF,
needs) are divided into following categories (Tab. 1). which can be viewed, in some way, as a miniature and modi
fied version of a conventional large blast furnace, has a few
Table 1. International small volume additional characteristics features known for its simplicity
blast furnace classification and economy. These features allow to obtain a competitive
Working vol
commercial pig iron [7].
Aggregate type and inter Productivity,
national abbreviation ume, m
3
t/day The world leader in MBF and CBF construction is SMS
Demag company. In the past 10 years the company con
Compact BF (CBF) 500–1500 1000–4000 structed over 20 MBF in Brazil, India and Indonesia. 5 fur
Mini BF (MBF) 100–500 300–1000 naces will be built during this year. These furnaces produce
commercial pigiron on nonintegrated steel works, or pro
Micro BF Up to 100 Less then 300
duce liquid conversion iron for minimills needs on integrat
ed steel works based on basic oxygen converter or EAF. The
The smelting process in cupola furnace is also consid MBFs that were built during the past 15 years generally have
ered to be competitive. Modern cupola furnaces with hot a working volume ranging from 100–250 m3 with an average
blast produce about 100 t/hour (i.e. up to 2500 tons of liquid productivity of 2.2 t/m3 as it is shown in Table 3.
12
CIS Iron and Steel Review · 2009
13
CIS Iron and Steel Review · 2009
Companies, BF
Russian
Brazil India
Federation
BF characteristics
Gerdau Sidersul Midwest Usha
MSA №2, Kirlos Kar Kalyani Satkinskiy
№1, №1, Ribas Sesa Goa №1, Marti №1,
Belu №2, №1, Metallurgical
Divinopol du Riu №1 Shrikaku Jumshed
Orizonte Khospet Khospet №1, Satka
is Pardu lam pur
Working volume, m3 250 118 136 175 215 250 215 250 224
Conver
Conver Conver Conver Conver Conversion
sion pig
Type of smelted pig iron sion sion cast iron cast iron cast iron sion pig sion pig pig iron / cast
iron/cast
pig iron pig iron iron iron iron
iron
Raw materials
— solid fuel charcoal charcoal charcoal coke coke coke coke coke coke
— grain size, mm 10–25 12–120 12–120 20–60 15–25 15–60 15–50 25–60 25–80
— ash content, % 2 3 4 12 21 15 13 12 11,8
(mass.)
— ironore materials Lump ore Lump ore Lump ore Lump ore Lump ore Lump ore Lump ore Lump agglomerate.
ore — 40%, pel
lets. — 60%
— particle size, mm 6–32 9–25 9–25 10–30 10–30 10–30 8–30 6–30 10–30
— Fe, content %
66,5 65,0 66,5 65,0 64,0 65,0 65,5 65,0 55,5/63,2
(mass.)
Blast temp., оС 800 750 700 800 750 780 760 750 825
Conv.pig iron.
Solid fuel consumption, — 575, cast
640 630 637 600 700 640 590 620 iron. — 850 +
kg/ton of pig iron
NG 55 m3
Number Number of companies Total monthly pig iron Company part (%) Pig iron monthly
of blastfurnaces that have the given production by these in total pigiron average production
per one company amount of blastfurnaces companies, tons production volume per blastfurnace, tons
2 25 364200 44 7284
According to Brazilian state laws, all companies that use wood substance, roots, leaves that absorb CO2 and provide
charcoal must carry out a program on plantation reconstruc the oxygen flow to the atmosphere.
tion. Typical forest plantations include eucalyptus trees According to some research works, the entire process
according to a sevenyear cycle. Each ton of obtained sea (from planting trees to pig iron manufacture by using char
soned wood is provided with a growing biomass of 6.8 tons of coal) removes about 1.1 tons of CO2 from the atmosphere.
14
CIS Iron and Steel Review · 2009
When using coke for pig iron manufacture there is about Blastfurnace
1.8 tons of CO2 released to the atmosphere. Hence, by using development prospects
charcoal the CO2 emission to the atmosphere is decreased by
2.9 t/t of pig iron. The development strategy of various kinds of metal
As is widely known, charcoal (when compared to coke) has lurgical manufacture should be connected with the world
lower physical strength, and also increased strength index when economic tendencies. Most important metallurgical ten
directly reduced, and reactive capability. Therefore, blastfur dencies are:
naces that operate on charcoal, have lower height and larger 1. Drastic reduction (for some regions even total disap
diameter when compared to cokeoperating blast furnaces. pearance) of iron ore deposits. In the 20th century, it is
The distinguishing feature of charcoal blastfurnace impossible to ignore the presence of associated ore compo
smelting is low slag yield (120–150 kg/t of pig iron) and slag nents in amounts exceeding 0.001 %. Hence, iron ores are
basicity ((CaO+MgO)/SiO2) — 0,75–0,85. The charcoal con now considered as complex rawmaterials. The technology of
sumption (depending on its humidity and silicon content in pig extracting just one element (i. e. iron) reaches back. There
iron) ranges from 750–1000 kg/t of commercial pig iron. fore it is necessary to evaluate and minimize irrecoverable
Charcoalobtained pig iron surpasses the quality of losses of associated elements. MBF has the capability of
cokeobtained pig iron since it has lower sulfur and phos smelting process management.
phorus content. Furthermore charcoalobtained pig iron 2. The energy resources consumption was always the key
usually does not contain such microelements as titanium, feature of its quality characteristics. Experience shows that
chromium, and zinc that enter the traditional blast furnace blastfurnaces with the working volume up to 1000 m3 and
with coke ash. the usage of modern constructive innovations help to lower
the energy resources consumption when compared to regular
blastfurnaces.
Blastfurnace process improvement 3. The global recycling will become the key element of
in smallvolume furnaces the industrial manufacture. Technogenic rawmaterials
recycling in MBF has an advantage over large volume
According to some researchers and blastfurnace opera aggregates.
tors opinion, the blastfurnace productivity could be signifi These facts allow to assume, that the future of pig iron
cantly raised under certain circumstances: production belongs to smallvolume (up to 2000 m3) blast
— Increase in injected additive agents while raising the furnaces.
oxygen content;
— Increase in rawmaterial metallurgical quality.
— It is supposed that the blastfurnace with the working REFERENCES
volume of 600 m3 could produce from 4 to 7 tons of cast
iron/m3·day while supplying 350–400 kg/t. of pig iron of 1. Shaiding K., Sherer S. V. G., Pfaiffer Kh. K., etc. Pro
pulverized coal fuel. The coke consumption — 200 kg/t. and duction development tendencies of conversion pigiron
an oxygen content of 60 % (vol.). Upon providing wellbal in small volume blast furnaces // Ferrous metals, 2000,
anced correlation between process oxygen and injected addi No. 10, p. 28–39.
tives, optimal temperature distribution in blastfurnace could 2. Reifer F., Gantenberg M., Bertling R., Shiber G. CBF as a
be reached. Tuyere flux injection improves the slagmaking modern alternative for conversion pigiron obtainment
conditions. on minimill // Ferrous metals, 2000, No. 7, p. 18–23.
During the recent years, the technology of ironbearing 3. CBF — modern engineering solution for pigiron obtain
materials and fluxes injection (i. e. converter slag) is greatly ment // Foreign ferrous metals news // 2001, No. 4,
emphasized. p. 37–40.
Numerous research works show, that the blastfurnace 4. Metallurgical plans in new millennium // Foreign ferrous
flux injections leads to first slag basicity decrease, and metals news // 2001, No. 2, p. 36–38.
increase in slag basicity in the upper part of the furnace 5. Blastfurnace pigiron production development // Fo
hearth. Various materials’ technology development injection reign ferrous metals news // 2001, No. 3, p. 41–46.
(earlier charged by means of furnace throat) is important for 6. Monteiro L. S. Charcoal BF operation in Brazil // Foreign
small volume blastfurnaces. The technology helps to lower ferrous metals news // 2001, No. 1, p. 36–37.
the softeningmelting zone, increase the blastfurnace pro 7. Amit Chatterjee, Ramesh Singh, Banshidhar Pandey
ductivity and solve the problems with low coke strength and Metallics for Steelmaking — production and use, ISBN
charcoal in coke packing. 8177641301, 732 p.
15