Practice and Concept for Extending Blast Furnace Campaign Life at WISCO

This paper reviews the history and experience for extending blast furnace campaign life at WISCO. In 1960's, the breakout of hearth wall and fast erosion of shaft lining had been key problems for the blast furnaces. In 1970, carbon block bottom with water cooling underneath was adopted at BF No.4, which obviously released the erosion of lining of blast furnace hearth and bottom. Since 1978, investigations on the mechanism of erosion of blast furnace lining have been carried out by dissecting the remaining refractories and cooling staves. Based on the understanding of the mechanism concerning erosion of blast furnace lining, BF No.5 with adoption of advanced technologies for extending blast furnace campaign life was built. BF No.5 was blown in 1991 and had been worked smoothly for 15.6 years without any repair of lining with a total iron production of 35.51 Mt (corresponding to 11096.6t/m(3)). The experience of BF No.5 for extending blast furnace campaign life has been disseminated successfully on other blast furnaces at WISCO with continuing improvements.