In 1967 Nippon Steel Corp (NSC) concluded an agreement with the USSR for a licence to use and develop for marketing stave cooling technology for blast furnaces. Its first application of stave cooling was at the Nagoya No3 blast furnace which was blown-in in April 1969. Since that time NSC has refined the design and operating technology of stave coolers and now offers a fourth generation design which is said to result in blast furnace life being determined solely by the durability of the hearth bricks. The latest generation of coolers are adaptable to virtually all existing BFs, and are said to be more economical to install than new copper cooling plates during relining, offer decreased operating costs and reduced maintenance requirements. The main arguments in favour of staves when compared with plate cooling are given as: - Increased wall thickness due to the combination of cooling plates and refractory bricks is more prone to the development of major profile changes resulting in uneven wear. - Uneven wear and subsequent degradation of profile uniformity causes uneven layering resulting in inferior gas utilisation and higher peripheral heating. This adversely affects heat load along the wall and operating costs.
展开▼
