Ladle Refining Furnace Power Consumption

Ladle refining furnace power consumption:

The refining furnace uses electricity as the source of energy and heats steel by electricity, so the consumption is very huge.

Therefore, the space for its energy consumption control is very large, and even if only some improvements are made in one aspect through technological transformation, it will have a huge impact on the energy saving.

Analysis of Ladle Refining Furnace Power Consumption

1.Status Quo and Necessity of Energy Consumption Control

In iron and steel smelting enterprises, a large amount of energy needs to be invested in smelting.

From coal to electric energy, different energy types play their respective roles in the entire smelting process.

Electric energy is mainly used for smelting in refining furnaces, and it is also a major energy consumption formed by steelmaking at present, which reflects several notable features:

First, the energy consumption is large, which is directly related to the high melting point of steel and the large-scale production;

Second, the efficiency is low.

Judging from the current electric energy utilization efficiency of the refining furnace, it is still at a very low level, and many channels for energy leakage are difficult to be fully controlled;

Third, the control technology is outdated. From the current my country’s refining furnace power consumption control technology, there are still serious backward problems.

The power consumption control of the refining furnace can save a lot of energy and reduce production costs, enabling steel enterprises to optimize production capacity and improve business quality.

2.Power Consumption Control Analysis

The electric energy consumed by the smelting furnace is mainly used for smelting, but it is inevitable to release energy from the outside world, thereby causing the problem of electric energy loss.

This kind of power loss problem cannot be completely eliminated. The power consumption control of the refining furnace is to reduce these lost power and achieve greater utilization efficiency of energy.

By analyzing the specific occurrence of power consumption in the refining furnace, targeted remediation can be made, which is the main way to control the actual power consumption.

1) Analysis of power consumption during refining time

Power consumption is proportional to refining time.

Therefore, improving the refining efficiency in the refining furnace and reducing the refining time is the most effective way to solve the power consumption control.

The factors that cause the change of refining time mainly include the initial temperature, state and composition of molten steel.

If the initial temperature of molten steel is consistent with the production process and its composition is uniform, and there is no crusting in the molten steel slag layer, the refining will be significantly accelerated, and the entire refining process will be faster.

According to the production experience of the refining furnace, the influence of the initial temperature of the molten steel on the refining time can lead to a duration of about 20-40 minutes, and the change in the refining time will cause deviations in the connection of the entire process, so the initial state of the molten steel should be adjusted as much as possible.

To the required state, the power consumption can be greatly reduced, which is one of the most important ways to control the power consumption of the refining furnace.

2) Analysis of alloy power consumption

In actual steel production, it is necessary to add other ingredients to the refining furnace to form the desired alloy, because adding these ingredients requires multiple times of switching the refining furnace, and the low initial temperature of the added substances will also lead to a drop in the temperature of the molten steel.

The purpose of refining is to make necessary adjustments to the composition of molten steel, but at the same time, it also leads to the extension of refining time and the corresponding increase in electricity.

For this reason, it is necessary to precisely control the quantity and frequency of adding alloys in the process of alloy production, so as to prevent the loss of heat caused by excessive switching of the refining furnace and further prolong the heating time.

By reducing the number of additions and accurately grasping the number of additions, the thermal energy utilization efficiency can be fully guaranteed, and the actual consumption of electric energy can play its application role.

3) Analysis of temperature and power consumption of molten steel entering station

In the production process of the refining furnace, an important production link is desulfurization.

To ensure the desulfurization effect, the whole process needs to be kept at high temperature.

The improvement and maintenance of the temperature at the entry station need to be achieved by continuous heating. The higher the temperature at the entry station, the smaller the actual power consumption of the refining furnace will be.

Conversely, it will lead to a significant increase in power consumption.

During the normal operation of the refining furnace, the temperature of incoming molten steel is mainly affected by two aspects:

One is the tapping temperature of the electric furnace, and the other is the waiting time of the ladle.

The higher the tapping temperature and the shorter the ladle waiting time, the lower the power consumption during the refining process. Raising the incoming temperature of molten steel, lowering the outgoing temperature, and shortening the waiting time is a necessary way to improve the level of energy saving.

4) Control measures for power consumption of refining furnaces

In view of the power consumption problem in the whole refining furnace production process, it is necessary to adopt specific and feasible methods to optimize each link, so as to continuously reduce the power consumption of the refining furnace.

The specific measures can be roughly summarized as follows:

a. Shorten the waiting time.

Reduce the heat dissipation of the ladle during transport:

Do a good job of ladle insulation materials to enhance the insulation effect and reduce the heat loss of the ladle slag surface;

At the same time, through reasonable arrangement of production, the qualified rate of molten steel composition at the station is improved to shorten the waiting time.

b. Increase the temperature of molten steel entering the station and reduce the casting temperature of molten steel.

Properly increasing and stabilizing the tapping temperature of the electric furnace creates good conditions for increasing and stabilizing the refining temperature of molten steel in the refining furnace.

To increase the temperature of molten steel entering the station, on the one hand, it is necessary to shorten the waiting time, and on the other hand, to increase the tapping temperature of the electric furnace, and finally reduce the power consumption of the refining furnace.

According to statistics, while strengthening management, the average superheat degree of various steel grades decreased by about 2°C over the same period.

c. Shorten the refining time.

d. Improve operation level and strengthen management.

The operation level of the refining furnace operators will also affect the power consumption, by strengthening the professional skills training of the workers.

Improve the operation level of workers, formulate a reasonable process system, strengthen scheduling management and technical personnel tracking management, and improve the assessment system, not only to ensure that the steel is tapped as planned, but also to reduce the operation time from the electric furnace tapping to the refining furnace in place.10min.

To sum up, energy saving and emission reduction are the problems that must be solved in the current production and operation of iron and steel smelting enterprises.

Through effective technical methods to optimize and transform the production process and improve the power utilization efficiency of the enterprise in the production process, it can have a direct impact on the enterprise’s operating cost control and product quality.

Hani Metallurgy is a professional industrial electric furnace manufacturer and powerful factory mainly producing melting furnaces. After years of development, it has become a professional manufacturer of melting furnace, intermediate frequency electric furnaces, EAF, LF, SAF, IF and other smelting equipment. It can provide users with one-stop engineering outsourcing services such as “turnkey projects”.

Welcome to continue to follow us, we will continue to share more information about metal smelting equipment. If you have any questions or needs about melting furnaces, please feel free to contact us!