The casthouse is a critical interface between the Blast Furnace and Steelmaking Plant. The casthouse layout depends on the number of tapholes and may include 1, 2, 3 or 4 main runners, iron and slag runners. The main runner ('trough') primary function is separating iron and slag. A typical casthouse layout for 2 tapholes is illustrated in Figure 1. Originally iron and slag were cast in hand shaped sand runners, sloping down over the casthouse floor. The casthouse work was tough and hot, and environmental control was non-existing. Despite this, there are still a large number of furnaces that have these types of embedded runners (Figure 2).
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