Steel manufacturing by Electric Arc Furnace (EAF) is getting more accepted day by day due to the decrease of 3/4th amount of carbon emitted to the environment. More and more steel makers are enhancing the production performance and also treating the environment well. And subsequently, there is a trend of shift from Blast Furnace to Electric Arc Furnace extensively.
Each lance pipe that is used for the Electric Arc Furnace has several purposes to improve the performance of steel making process. However, there are some customers who still have concern about what kind of lance pipe is suitable for the steel-making process in an Electric Arc Furnace, or what type of lance pipe is applicable for ladle furnace cleaning and taphole drilling. Thus, it is important that electric furnace steelmakers should comprehend that there are appropriate lance pipes available for each process.
Today, in this content, we are going to introduce the general processes in which lance pipes are required at each process in EAF steelmaking, so that customers can certainly improve the production by developing the performance and cost saving.
Three Basic Types of Oxygen Lance Pipes for Electric Arc Furnace
Source: Daiwa Lance International
FIRST PROCESS: Cutting Larger Scraps
There are tons of processes in steel manufacturing by Electric Arc Furnace. Initially, the first process in EAF is to cut substantial size of scraps as material preparation then putting those scraps in the Electric Arc Furnace. With this purpose, customers search for the oxygen lance pipe that are to be used for fusing the metals and so on. Therefore, Thermic Lance is one of the optimal options since the principle behind this is to harness the oxidation heat of high temperature by providing pressurized oxygen inside an ignited steel tube.
Image of Thermic Lance Pipes cutting a thick and hard steel bar for performance testing
Thermic Lance (TL) is a steel pipe filled with wires or a mixture of wires and an inner pipe, when this burns, it generates a powerful flame of up to 4,000°C without noise and vibration and break up materials instantly. Mostly, the metal tube contains steel wire that promotes combustion.
Image of Thermic Lance Pipes
SECOND PROCESS: Injection to E A F
The lance pipes are used for blowing oxygen, carbon and other materials into electric furnaces which are challenging and also resistant to heat and oxidation. In this case, the Calorized lance pipes are used which can reduce the number of lance pipes usage thus leading to cost savings and safe processes.
CA Lance (CA) lasts up to 3 to 10 times longer than other mild steel lances and is used not only for the smelting and refining of steel by blowing oxygen gas, but also used for the injection of carbon, other additives and/or lime.
Image showing CA Lance Pipes in various sizes.
THIRD PROCESS: Tap hole opening and furnace cleaning
The next process of steel manufacturing is to open the tap hole so that the manufacturing process gets enough flow of the melted iron. With this purpose, most of manufacturers inclines to the SC Lance pipes.
Image showing SC Lance Pipes for tap hole opening
SC Lance (SC) is a mild steel oxygen lance pipe made with Hot Rolled Steel Sheet in the coil (HRC) and welded by high-frequency welding equipment, and there is no oil or no grease on the surface of the pipe.
After streaming out the liquid steel, the workers used SC Lance pipe to clean stuck metal inside the converter. The SC Lance pipe is also used for cleaning furnace.
Image of SC Lance Pipes
Image of cleaning the Electric Arc Furnace
SC LANCE generates a high temperature of over 3,000℃ by blowing oxygen and melting solidified steel, and slag on equipment. This pipe can be used to remove slag on the wall of the ingot case, clean slag in ladle and steel-slag mixture at the slag notch, pig iron at the iron notch of the blast furnace, and iron notch of an Electric Arc Furnace, and cut steel scraps.
Image SC Lance Pipes in Bundle Packing
Conclusion
Our lance pipes can support the whole steel manufacturing process. It takes less time to smelt steel, which helps to reduce fuel, oil, and gas, which are the key fuels used in steel manufacturing.
We hope this piece of information is helpful to you.
If you wish to know more about our lance pipes and its different applications, please feel free to contact us at sales@daiwaanayasteel.com.
Daiwa Anaya Steel Private Limited is a part of Anaya Steel, LLC (US parent company). Our company has over 30 years of involvement in steel products. It mostly deals in:
- Specialized steel hardware – punched, pressed, galvanized, powder coated.
- Steel pipes and tubing – specialized, color coated, galvanized and structural.
- Our Lance pipes are produced by Daiwa Lance International in Vietnam.
