EXERGY ANALYSIS OF STEEL ELECTRIC ARC FURNACE

In this paper, energy and exergy analysis of an existing steel electric arc furnace (EAF) was performed to estimate the furnace potential for increasing the efficiency and decreasing the electrical energy consumption. The results of analysis show that the energy and exergy efficiencies of the furnace are 56.9% and 40.5%, respectively. Field data show that mass flow rate of hot flue gas is around 10.4 kg/s in average which contains 18.3% and 12.2% of total input energy and exergy, respectively. By using energy of flue gas for preheating the sponge iron, electrical energy consumption of the furnace could be reduced up to 88 GJ which means 21.2% reduction in electrical energy consumption and 13.6% increase in steel production. Also, exergy efficiency improves about 10.8% by using preheating scheme.