Металл и литье Украины (Jan 2020)
Characteristics of material and energy consumption for steel production in the BOF shops of Ukraine, Germany and China
Abstract
These are described in the article the results of an analysis of the main technological and energy indicators of steel production in basic oxygen furnaces at steelworks in Ukraine, Germany and China. It has been determined that Ukraine’s metallurgical enterprises use steel-making iron of a lower temperature than in Germany and China, while the content of silicon, manganese and sulfur at foreign enterprises is much lower. According to the technological indicators of BOF smelting, it has been found that the metal charge of Ukrainian enterprises, in comparison with foreign ones, is characterized by increased consumption of steel-making iron and low consumption of scrap of various types. As for the consumption of slag-forming materials, it is typical for foreign enterprises to use less lime when achieving greater basicity of the final slag than in enterprises of Ukraine. Summarizing information about the technological features of LD-process, we can conclude that the steelworks of Ukraine and Germany overblow metal and China end blowing at target carbon content. The final temperature of steel is comparable for each considered country, since this parameter is determined by the casting technology of finished steel. The analysis of the blowing mode has showed that in the BOF shops of Ukraine, a significantly higher amount of oxygen (58–64 m3/t of steel) is used compared to foreign steelworks (46–50 m3/t of steel). According to the results of the analysis, it has been found that the technological cycle of steel-making is characterized by the yield of crude steel for enterprises in Germany and China at about 91–95 % against 89–93 % for Ukrainian steelworks. The results of calculating the increase in energy intensity of steel during conversion showed their high values for domestic workshops compared to foreign ones. The difference in the increase of energy intensity of Ukrainian steel compared with foreign one is 0.69–0.71 GJ/t.
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