Experience with Low Shaft Furnace at Ougree

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.