Impacto de las condiciones térmicas de las cucharas durante paradas largas en la performance del revestimiento refractario

A. GIMENEZ; L. MUSANTE; M. ZURZOLO; C. CAPURRO; C. CICUTTI; P. GALLIANO

Rosario

Congreso; 21º Steel Conference IAS 2016; 2016

IAS

Long out-of-cycle periods have a well-known negative impact in ladle lining performance. This situation can reduce not only the ladle lining mean life but also some critical operation and metallurgical processes parameters after the ladle returns to operation. Suitable ladle preheating conditions before operation should be selected to avoid low steel temperatures and assure efficient gas stirring. However, there is no uniform criteria in this sense and there is a wide variety of conditions that are usually considered for the ladles under long non-working periods. These alternatives varies from slow cooling until room temperature to continuous preheating at standard temperatures, including all of the intermediate conditions. In this work, a set of different thermal conditions was defined for Tenaris Siderca ladles during non-working periods of one day or more. Then, the impact of these thermal conditions on the ladle refractory lining performance was evaluated through selected process parameters. Lab tests were also done in order to complement obtained in-plant data. From these results, the effect of empty ladle thermal conditions on their refractory lining wear is evaluated. Results led to improvements in ladle refractory lining performance.