Practice for Extending Blast Furnace Campaign Life at Wuhan Iron and Steel Corporation

One of the problems encountered in 60’s to 80’s of 20th century in China’s steel industry was short life of blast furnace shaft as well as the excessive erosion of blast furnace hearth. A series of research work was carried out in order to extend blast furnace campaign life. The concept of research and development was integrated in the construction of BF (blast furnace) No. 5 at WISCO (Wuhan Iron and Steel Corporation), and in October, 1991, the BF No. 5 was blown in. The blast furnace has worked smoothly for more than 15 years without any medium repair even guniting. It is expected that the campaign life of BF No. 5 would be longer than 16 years with a production over 11 000 t per unit inner volume (m3 ). A new blast furnace with an inner volume of 3 400 m3 is under construction, and is designed with a campaign life of 20 years without any medium repair. The campaign life of blast furnaces in China has been extended in recent years.