A New Approach for the Wear Failure Risk of Copper Staves in Blast Furnaces

Copper staves are widely used as cooling systems for blast furnaces. Since the inside wall of the furnaces are completely covered with copper staves, the failure of the system plays a significant role for premature blast furnace relining. Especially the bosh area is the critical part of blast furnaces because it faces high heat load. The damage to the bosh area directly affects the service period of BF’s. The lifetime of furnaces can be prolonged considerably by preventing the premature damage of this section. For this purpose, a new approach has been introduced to define the premature risk factor of copper staves based on design and operation parameters. The data of 34 different blast furnaces obtained from the members of World Steel Assoc. are applied to this new approach to calculate the premature risk factors. The results are recorded and analyzed according to service lifetime and actual wear situations of copper staves. Finally, all these analyzes show that the new approach, which is represented in this paper can be a new design check parameter for blast furnaces and a practical solution to define the premature wear risk of copper staves. Therefore, blast furnace designers and users can extend the blast furnace lifetime by using this new approach resulting in high economic benefits.