Preventing premature failures of blast furnace copper staves
LONG LIFE BLAST FURNACE COPPER STAVES
Historically, refractory-lined blast furnace cooling solutions have demanded regular maintenance to repair damage and prolong the operational life of the furnace. Cooling utilizing copper staves has become increasingly common in the last twenty years as a means of increasing working volume of the furnace and as operators have pushed to achieve longer campaigns to stretch the return on investment of their asset. Despite the attractiveness of the technology and widespread application, two failure mechanisms have been recognized that can endanger the working life of the furnace:
- Stave Bending
- Stave Wear
Removing occurrence of these phenomena means the furnace can operate safely, with minimal stoppages and avoid production losses over a longer operational period.
What are the problems that can occur? What are the requirements in terms of furnace and stave design and what have we learnt?
This 45-minute webinar discusses the challenges as experienced by Ternium Argentina, the solutions developed and successfully implemented by Primetals Technologies but also where the technology is going next in bringing further value to blast furnace operators.
Target audience:
- Blast Furnace Managers
- Blast Furnace Maintenance Supervisors
- Blast Furnace Process Engineers/Metallurgists
- Plant Managers
Key takeaways:
- Learn about the specific conditions that lead to failure of copper stave cooling elements
- Understand the experience of furnace operators in determining failing copper staves, the challenges to operational productivity, repair difficulties, corresponding maintenance costs and production losses
- Gain insights into world-class leading technology that overcomes the common failure scenarios but also brings innovation and value to the customer
SPEAKERS
ED LONG
Product Owner Furnace Cooling, Primetals Technologies
Ed started his career as a Process Engineer within the Blast Furnace business over a decade ago. In this time, he has been responsible for the design and commissioning of various types of cooling system in Europe and Asia. This led to him being appointed the Product Owner for Furnace Cooling systems. This role sees Ed developing solutions for steelmakers facing challenges with their blast furnace cooling technologies. He is currently exploring ways to incorporate instrumentation into cooling elements to provide a greater depth of information on the blast furnace process.
ROBERTO MUSANTE
Manager Ironmaking Technology, Ternium Argentina
Roberto is a Chemical Engineer with 22 years of experience in the iron and steel industry. He spent his early career in automation and control working in the implementation of mathematical models for control applications. In 2004 Roberto moved to ironmaking as a process engineer and became head of operations for BF2 in 2006. In 2009 he returned to technology as head of the Blast Furnace Technical Department and in his current role oversees Ironmaking Technology at Ternium Argentinia. Roberto has been an active member of the European Blast Furnace Committee since 2010 and in 2017 he obtained a master’s degree in Advanced Metallurgy from The University of Sheffield.
MODERATOR
COLIN MORRISON
Blast Furnace Product Sales and Marketing Manager, Primetals Technologies
Colin started his career as a Process Engineer within the Iron & Steelmaking business almost thirty years ago. In this time, he has been involved in the design and commissioning of both blast furnace and oxygen steelmaking systems worldwide as well as business development for other related thermal processing technologies. Following an extended period in the engineering group, he was appointed as Product Sales & Marketing Manager with a role to develop customer value propositions for Primetals Technologies’ blast furnace solutions. This brings together the product benefits with the needs of modern steelmakers in returning value for their assets.
