Experience with Low Shaft Furnace at Ougree

Abstract

HEIGHT is of major importance in a blast furnace. Of late there has been a tendency to increase the height of blast furnaces and exceptional thermal efficiencies were thus attained as can be visual- ised by the fact that the top gases do not exceed 100 to 150"C in temperature. However the main dis-advantage with higher furnaces lies in the necess- ity of a combustible of great mechanical strength : metallurgical coke, a product both rare and expen- sive. It would therefore be advantageous to reduce the height provided this measure is not too detrim- ental to efficiency. Use of oxygen was thought of in this connection and the idea of a collective study on the performance of a low Shaft Furnace was formed in 1951 in the meetings of a Committee of the European Organisation of Economic Co-operation (Office European de Cooperation Econo- mique) which was to investigate the possible uses of oxygen in ferrous metallurgy.