Earlier this year, a UCAR® FlexRepair™ Program was delivered to the TATA Steel storage facility in Jamshedpur, India. This offers TATA hearth refractory materials at their fingertips for a medium or small repair on any size furnace. In today's market, stopping and restarting many times without tapping the salamanders, puts serious stress on the BF hearth linings, which can often lead to lining failure.  

Hearth Break Out

There have been several cases around the world of the shell bulging/deforming or indeed cracking under these forces. Investigations on "swing " furnaces which stop/start more often than others have shown totally crushed carbon sidewall linings and large deformation of the steel shell. Older steel shells have also been found to crack, releasing liquids if preventative actions are not taken.

• Fact: Blast Furnace break-outs result in lost productivity and very costly repairs. Limiting down-time as well as selecting the best hearth refractory material for the repair is key!  Keeping RefractoryFlex™  material on the ground is a smart investment; it limits the downtime for hearth wall repairs. This is surely the best and lowest cost insurance you can buy! The potential cost of failure is huge and no one can predict which furnace will fail and when.
• The RefractoryFlex™ Program gives "Peace of Mind"; if any BF unexpectedly fails, the operator can get the furnace back quickly and at a low cost.  Additional UCAR® RefractoryFlex™ Repair benefits include:
• The repair uses HotPressed™ bricks and fits all furnaces.
• Provides refractory availability even when delivery times are long or unpredictable, minimizing downtown and financial loss.
• Material not used for repairs can be utilized as part of a future reline.
• Provides the ultimate reline flexibility for the operators.

Smart operators keep spare parts on hand for all critical equipment.  The hearth is one of the most critical areas of a furnace, and the UCAR® RefractoryFlex™ system is the most effective method for keeping a spare hearth. 

Learn more about the RefractoryFlex™ Program here or contact us directly to discuss this program and your specific situation.

METINVEST Launches BF#3 at Yenakieve

 In our Newsletter #17 from last summer we informed you about Metinvest's plans for their plant in the Ukraine.  The furnace was commissioned on December 7. In that same month's issue of the AIST journal we read:  "The new furnace BF3 applies a number of state-of-the-art technologies and utilizes the latest industrial control systems. For example the furnace's bell-less top charging unit, made by Paul Wurth, reportedly reduces coke consumption by 5% by simultaneously increasing the blast furnace's productivity by 5%. In addition, a new refractory lining applied to the blast furnace hearth walls is designed to quadruple the service life of the furnace, providing 15 years of maintenance-free operation."  Well, that GrafTech supplied and designed lining includes a GradeD™ carbon block bottom with NMA™ and NMD™ HotPressed™ brick hearth walls and tuyere band. Metinvest has the following mission statement: "The strategic aim of Metinvest is to create a world-class mining and steel industrial company achieving the topmost positions in Europe and worldwide". Investing in a UCAR® hearth lining will most certainly be in line with the company's strategy. And in 15 years from now, should they decide to extend the campaign, it is very likely that they can, should the rest of the furnace be up to it. For example, look at AK Steel's blast furnace Amanda; HotPressed™ brick wall: 26 years, GradeD™ bottom: 42 years... 

5 Year Anniversary: Newsletter #1 in  March 2007 - What a great year that was! Let's make 2012 even better.

A link to all of our past newsletters as well as translations in Mandarin and Russian can be located here.  As you will notice, that first Newsletter was slightly more demanding to the readers than the more "refined" product that you are reading today; it basically consisted of one very long article, including lots of data, concerning one of the two 5500 m³ blast furnaces that Shougang Jingtang was building. You might wonder how that very large refractory furnace lining is doing today? Well, operating a 15,5m diameter blast furnace is not an easy task, but all the relevant refractory hearth temperature readings are very stable for both furnaces, including in the important tap hole areas. Operators actually claim that their taphole performance is best in class and much better than other very large blast furnaces in the country. We can only say:  congratulations!  We plan to give you another update in 2017.