Experience with Low-Shaft Furnace at Ougree

HEIGHT is a factor 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 visualised by the fact that the top gases do not exceed 100 to 150°C in temperature.
However, the main disadvantage with higher furnaces
lies in the necessity of using a combustible of great
mechanical strength : metallurgical coke, a product both rare and expensive. It would therefore be advantageous to reduce the height provided this measure is not too detri-mental to efficiency. Use of oxygen was thought of in this connection and the idea of a collective study on the Low Shaft Furnace process was formed in 1951 in the Meetings of a Committee of the European Organisation of Economic
Co-operation ( "Office Europeen de Co-operation Econom ique") which was to investigate the possible uses of oxygen in ferrous metallurgy.