Technology Advancements in Blast Furnace Cooling

Abstract

The premature failure of staves in the lower stack and bosh is frequently the reason for an interim blast furnace repair at great cost to the owner. Protective accretions may form on the stave hot face, but if these accretions are lost, the stave is then exposed to abrasion from the descending burden materials, which increases cooler wear and results in cooling circuit failures. Hatch has developed patented finger coolers as an improved alternative to traditional stave repair methods (often requiring insulating grout) by establishing a highly-conductive metal-to-metal thermal joint. Hatch completed a pilot installation in 2016 of a pair of finger coolers in a blast furnace cast iron stave and a comparison of predictive models to site monitored temperature data will be presented using a series of thermal finite element analyses. These models predict the installed finger cooler performance within 2% of the measured site data, thereby demonstrating that finger coolers reduce stave body temperatures with predictable results over a wide range of process conditions.