Melting characteristics of alternative charging materials in an electric arc furnace steelmaking

ABSTRACT

The data obtained on 220-T ultra-high power electric arc furnace (EAF) were analysed in order to study the impact of DRI quality on the steelmaking process parameters and consumption of lime, coke, oxygen, natural gas, electrical energy and electrodes. In addition, the effects of charging methods and proportions of DRI in an EAF were studied. It was found that by increasing the proportion of non-high quality reduced pellets and/or HBI to 45% of the metallic charge, the steel yield decreased to 85.32% and increased to 87.57% when between 75 and 100% continuous feeding of high quality reduced pellets. This resulted in saving 21 min in tap-to-tap time and 7% of the electrode consumption. Charging high proportion of non-high quality DRI from 45% to 100% in EAF, leads to a loss of 4 tons/heat in liquid steel, and an increase in lime consumption from 4 to 6 kg/ton liquid steel.

KEYWORDS:

• Electric arc furnace
• DRI
• HBI
• yield of steel
• electric power consumption
• electrode consumption

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).