A well-known fact about the operation of the electric arc furnace is that the water-cooled panels take away a considerable amount of the heat produced during melting cycle resulting in a reduced efficiency. Currently it is known that having a good slag cover will help reduce energy loss, damage to the pipes on the panels and increase life to a certain extent. However, the slag is not enough to keep the heat inside the furnace and so water continues to…
What is it? It is an alternative procedure that replaces the hydrostatic test, using pressurized inert gas in the water cooled components with an ultrasound leak detection equipment. Objective: Replace the hydrostatic test by a pneumatic pressure test in order to avoid remnants of fluids (water or antifreeze) inside the water-cooled circuits and detect even the smallest leaking spots before shipping the fabricated items to our customers. Remnants of liquids from hydrostatic test will freeze when exposed at low temperatures…
During the years, there have been opposite opinions about the use of slag retainers in the Roof & Shell panels. Even though the retainers help to retain the slag, when you weld them to the pipe there is a grain growth in the steel microstructure that weakens the pipe’s strength in the weld heat affected area; normally the thermal fatigue stress cracks start appearing in the neighborhood of these seam welds on the pipes exposed to temperature. So, adding slag…
