Validation and Interpretation of Movable-Wall-Pilot-Oven Results at United States Steel Corporation

摘要

U. S. STEEL and CONSOL have optimized the value of pilot-oven testing by developing charging and operating practices that simulate wet-charge batteries of varying size, and by developing rules for validating results from pilot oven testing of wet and preheated coal blends. Many hypotheses have been submitted to explain the poor life performance of tall coke batteries in the United States. Various U. S. STEEL studies, including an autopsy of the prematurely failed Fairfield Battery 2, strongly indicate that excessive flexing of oven walls caused by high coking pressure results in extensive oven-wall brick damage and ultimately wall failure. Other factors such as charging pressure, steam pressure, hard pushes, high temperatures, and larry car loads, have caused extensive brick damage but in most cases, they are believed to have had an effect on the manifestation of the damage (bulges in walls), rather than being major contributors to the damage itself.