OXYGEN FURNACE

By: Patrick Lameck – MET/058/15

Kondwani Matimba – MIT/121/14
Peter Tembo – MET/020/15
GROUP 5 Severhino Mnyai – MET/012/15 1
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 Oxygen furnace
Definition

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• It is a steel making furnace, in which molten pig iron and steel
scrap convert into steel due to oxidizing action of oxygen
blown into the melt under a basic slag.
• It is a primary steel making.
• It is also known as Linz-Donawitz-Verfahren Steelmaking.
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 Oxygen furnace
• The oxygen furnace uses no additional fuel.
• The pig iron impurities (carbon, silicon, manganese and
phosphorous) serve as fuel.
• Iron and its impurities oxidize evolving heat necessary for the
process.

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 Oxygen Furnace
History
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• In 1856, Henry Bessemer patented a steelmaking process
involving oxygen blowing for decarburizing molten iron.
• For nearly a hundred years commercial quantities of oxygen
were not available at all or were too expensive, and the
invention remained unused.
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 Oxygen Furnace
History Continues….
• The process was developed in 1948 by Robert Durrer in
Switzerland.
• By commercialized in 1952–1953 by Austrian VOEST and
ÖAMG is an international steel based technology and
capital goods group based in Linz.
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 Oxygen Furnace

Functions
• To decarburize and remove phosphorus from the hot metal.
• To optimize the steel temperature for casting with no further
heat treatments.

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 Oxygen Furnace
Working Principle

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 Oxygen Furnace
Working Principle

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 Oxygen Furnace(OF)
Working Principle
1.Charging hot metal

• Hot metal is melted pig iron in a furnace.

• “Heating" begins when the OF vessel is tilted about 45
degrees towards the charging aisle and scrap charge (about
25 to 30% of the heat weight) is dumped from a charging
box into the mouth of the cylindrical OF.
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 Oxygen Furnace(OF)
Working Principle
1. Charging hot metal
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• Then the vessel is rotated back to the vertical position and
lime/dolomite fluxes are dropped onto the charge from
overhead bins while the lance is lowered to a few feet
above the bottom of the vessel.

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 Oxygen Furnace(OF)
Working Principle
2. Blow
• The lance is water-cooled with a multi-hole copper tip.
• Through this lance, oxygen of greater than 99.5% purity is
blown into the mix.
NOTE: If the oxygen is lower in purity, nitrogen levels at tap
become unacceptable.
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 Oxygen Furnace(OF)
Working Principle
2. Blow

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 Oxygen Furnace(OF)
Working Principle
3. Tapping and Additions

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 Oxygen Furnace(OF)
Working Principle
3. Tapping and Additions
• After blowing, purified steel is poured into ladles
• It is needed to further purifications according to customer
requirements
• Further purifications are done by alloy additives e.g
ferromanganese, ferrosilicon, silicomanganese etc
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 Oxygen Furnace (OF)
Working Principle
4. Slagging

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 Oxygen Furnace (OF)
Working Principle
4. Slagging
• After tapping, slag remains in the OF vessel
• The slag is poured into slag pots

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 Oxygen Furnace (OF)

Lining Protection Techniques

• Control of the content of aggressive oxidizing
oxide, FeO, in the slags at low level.
• Addition of MgO to the slags.
• Repair the damaged zones of the lining by
gunning refractory materials.
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 Oxygen Furnace (OF)
References
• http://www.steeluniversity.org/content/html/eng/default.asp?
catid=24&pageid=2081272081
• http://www.postech.ac.kr/dept/mse/cml/Kor/bofprocess.htm
• https://www.steel.org/Making%20Steel/How%20Its%20Made/P
rocesses/Processes%20Info/The%20Basic%20Oxygen%20Stee
lmaking%20Process.aspx
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• D L Amoss.Refractories 2010 Conference.The Southern African

Institute of Mining and Metallurgy.