Steel plant technology for ladle purging plug. It help improve purging plug life, reduce energy consumption, Ladle refractory consumption. Overall improvement for productivity and profitability.

1. Test Unit TST300
1 Functional Description
The test unit TST-300 is designed to test the purging plugs between in the ladle
preparation area.
This to avoid purging failures in the following heat and to prevent the purging
plug from unnecessary cleaning (burning, torching) with oxygen.
Nitrogen or compressed air is used as test media. It‘s not allowed to use natural
gas or any other inflammable gas.
The actual flow rate is between a predefined upper and lo-
wer limit > the porous plug is in good working condition.
The actual flow rate is above the higher limit > there could
be a leakage in the piping.
The actual flow rate is below the lower limit > the plug is
blocked or partly blocked, oxygen washing could be requi-
red (depending on the plug type)
Test Functions:
Plug Test (Test):
The plug test function generates an indication about the porous plug condition.
At a predefined pressure setting the actual flow rate is measured. The actual
flow rate defines the condition of the plug. Three levels are defined:
FC Technik AG Test Unit TST300 page 1
Green:
Orange:
Red:

2. Oxygen washing support (Bypass):
During the washing procedure with an oxygen lance, a continuous flow rate
trough the plug is produced. The flow rate is monitored continuously, as soon as
the flow rate exceeds a predefined limitation an indication is generated to stop
further oxygen washing.
to preserve the refractory material
safety due to less burning procedures
time savings
reproducibility and reliability
The TST is independent from the volumetric capacity, corresponding the height
of the ladle and the amount of plugs integrated in the ladle bottom.
Especially at big size ladles it is difficult to strike the surface of the plug with
the tip of the O2-lance while burning. This depends in general of the weight
and the length, e.g. more than 5 m is not unusual of the pipe. The handling is
offen very difficult for the worker and it needs time for the cleaning procedure.
The result is, that time of burning expands too long and is then inefficient due
to higher abrasion occurred at the refractory of the well-block and of course
the head of the purging plug. This limits the durability of the bottom purging
system and increase times of assembling and changing.
So it is very important to recognize before cleaning wether the plug is per-
meable or blogged. In case the plug is free no burning is necessary (priori-
ty advantage). The TST immediately detects the flow and pressure (test time
runs up to only 30 sec.) which fits at the plug and gives the just-in-time datas
directly to the operation screen and indicates simultaneously a signal by lamp
or buzzer. The exact measured flow and pressure supports the following pro-
cedure in the ladle refining process.
The documentation of the measured Datas helps to achieve a constant re-
peatable process too.
2 Advatages
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FC Technik AG Test Unit TST300 page 2

3. FC Technik AG
St. Gallerstrasse 340
CH-8409 Winterthur
Tel. +41 52 238 01 75
Fax +41 52 238 01 77
fc-technik@bluewin.ch
www.fc-techni.ch
Salzgitter Flachstahl GmbH
ArcelorMittal Eisenhüttenstadt
ArcelorMittal Hamburg
Elbe Edelstahlwerke Feralpi GmbH
DEW Siegen (order is placed)
3 References
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FC Technik AG Test Unit TST300 page 3