Blast Furnace
Where a precise mixture of coke, iron ore and limestone is changed into molten iron, the basic building block in steelmaking.
With a 28-½-foot-diameter hearth, 16 tuyeres, and a working volume of 54,000 cubic feet, Severstal Warren’s blast furnace can produce on average 4,000 tons of molten iron a day. The furnace is equipped with skip cars and a bell-less charging system with a rotating chute that distributes the raw materials into optimum locations within the furnace. The molten iron collects at the furnace bottom and is drained every one to two hours.
The blast furnace underwent a $15.3-million reline in 2004. The scope of the reline included replacement of the brick and refractory lining, installation of a new tuyere jacket, replacement of copper mantle plates and copper stack cooling plates, improvements to the water distribution system and repairs to the gas-cleaning system.