Operational Reliability of Bof Hoods Systems in CST Steelmaking Plant

摘要

Since stated up its activities in 1983, CST's production capacity has increased from 3.0 Mt/year to, nowadays, 4.8 Mt/year. Several improvements were made to provide this production growing. However, in steelmaking BOF hoods systems, nothing has been possible to do, because of the high costs involved and relatively long time for changing them. As a result, the bigger amount of gas in the hoods caused a much higher wearing rate upon its pipes, taking to frequent emergency shutdowns due to cooling water leakages. The aim subject of this work is giving a detailed description of the analysis, controlling and procedures that permitted us to overcome these problems and obtain equipment operational reliability for the new production plans.