ON A STEELMAKING PROCESS BY COMBINING OPTIMIZED OXYGAS ROTARY FURNACE AND PLASMA TECHNOLOGY

摘要

Over the last ten years, oxycombustion melting technology has established itself within the foundry market with considerable success. Oxygas rotary furnaces have been replacing the different varieties of coke cupola furnaces and electrical induction furnaces on environmental and economic grounds respectively. A project has been made in a pilot-plant to study the possibilities of extending oxygas rotary smelting technology to the steelmaking sector in which electrical induction furnaces and electric arc furnaces have traditionally been used. Sociedad de Gas de Euskadi, S.A. and the Basque Technological Research Centre Inasmet have conducted research work to investigate the viability of using the commercial oxycombustion rotary in a new process of steelmaking. The steelmaking process has been developed by combining two different projects: the oxygas rotary furnace that has been optimized by means the development of a new burner design in conjunction with Praxair and the ladle with plasma torch. The main conclusion of the research project is that the new steelmaking process is technically viable, as it enables liquid steel of a good metallurgic quality to be produced from raw materials of poor quality and low cost.