"The capital repair of the furnace was carried out in record time of 115 days, ahead of the planned repair period of 128 days," a BSP spokesperson said. The blast furnace (BF)-6 has a capacity to produce about 2250 Tonnes of hot metal per day.
The capital repair of BF 6 in Bhilai has been unique in several ways, according to BF experts. Salamandor tapping through the process of drilling on both the metal and slag side was done for the first time in SAIL, thereby doing away with the need for any blasting, the spokesperson said.
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The blowing in process of blast furnace (BF) 6 that had been taken down for Category I Capital Repair on April 6, 2014 was completed in the presence of S S Mohanty, Director Technical of the SAIL, S Chandrasekaran, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of BSP and Y K Degan, Executive Director (Works) besides other Executive Directors and senior officers.
The spokesperson said using a mechanised machine inside of the furnace shell to clean the hearth area of jammed coke, slag and metal after the furnace was put down for capital repair has been another process adopted for the first time in any SAIL plant.
During the repairs that included replacement of about 15 metres or two-third of furnace shell plate at the stack level of furnace, replacing carbon blocks in furnace hearth and entire refractory lining of furnace, a few facilities were strategically upgraded.
These include replacement of cantilever coolers with more effective plate coolers and upgradation of automation in stock house and charging control systems.
As part of upgrading automation systems, all MCCs in stock house and charging control systems have been replaced with intelligent MCCs that would facilitate problem-free operations.
Digital DC Drives equipped with state of the art micro-processor driven circuit breaker HMI, PLC and pulse encoder have been installed for raw material charging system.