Improving the Operational Safety of Tip Structures for Top-Blown Converter Lances
摘要
This paper aims to develop mechanical devices for feeding various process gases (such as oxygen and nitrogen) into the working space of 250-ton converters during steel smelting, ensuring significant production safety during operation and achieving higher durability. Based on a comprehensive analysis of various literary materials, patent searches, and the results of industrial testing of different tip designs (both standard and previously developed) for top oxygen lances, a new, safe lance tip design was developed and proposed, protected by Patent UA 78112. The results of the study have, for the first time, demonstrated a high level of efficiency in unloading the outer copper weld seam due to the installation of special reinforcing pins in the lance tip design, which is the most effective and necessary measure to increase operational safety and durability of any tip design for the top lance. The necessary technical documentation was transferred to the converter shop of OJSC “Dniprovsky Metallurgical Combine” (Kamianske, Ukraine) for the manufacture and implementation of this design of top blowing devices in the production process. The use of a safe design of a mechanical blowing device to the top converter lances, described in this work, will significantly secure the converter steel production, as well as increase the resistance of the tips to the top oxygen lances in comparison with known designs, which will lead to the complete elimination of the possibility of major accidents in the shop due to the destruction of the outer copper weld seam of the lance tip and the cost of huge funds for its elimination, as well as to obtaining a tangible economic effect due to the high degree of efficiency of solving the above problems, which are always present in operating converter shops.