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Experiences of regenerative burners in billet reheating furnace at Fundia Dalsbruk

K. Nordell, J. Fredriksson, Fundia Wire Oy Ab Dalsbruk, Finland. Introduction In order to increase the production Fundia Wire installed new regenerative burners in summer 1998. The prime objective of this paper is not only to reveal experiences of the use of the burners but also to review the other choices Fundia had to improve the reheating capacity in the rolling mill. The aim with the installation of the new burners was to increase the furnace reheating capacity from 66 to 72 tph. Fundia Dalsbruk rolling mill is a part of Fundia Wire, which is a member of Rautaruukki Group. The main wire rod products are cold heading grade, welding wire rods, special mild and high carbon grades including PC wire rod. Rolled diameters are from 5.5 to 21.0 mm. In order to increase production and to upgrade the product mix Fundia changed from 130 square billets to 160 mm square in 1991. At that time there were no need for upgrading the furnace. In summer 1995 the gearbox at the wire rod block was changed in order to increase the rolling speed from 79 to 95 m/s for 5.5 mm wire rod. In summer 98 two passes from the reversible roughing stand was taken out and replaced with two new rolling stands in continuous line. In the roughing stand there where five passes left. The roughing stand was a bottleneck in production when rolling wire rods from 8 to 16 mm. The furnace Amsler Morton Industrieofenbau has delivered the walking hearth furnace in 1973. Originally it was built for slabs. Length of the furnace is 24 m and with 7.5 m. The furnace is divided into three zones, two reheating zones and a soaking zone, which is again divided into three control zones in order to create temperature difference along the billet. Low sulphur heavy fuel oil is used as a burning fuel. The regenerative burners are situated in the beginning of the 1st heating zone. The pre-heating zone, heating and soaking zones are top fired with six burners per zone. The flue gases go through a recuperator. The main limitation in increasing the capacity was the combustion air temperature coming through the recuperator. Investment alternatives In order to find the best solution for increasing the production rate there were concerned three alternatives investigated: oxygen enrichment, heat radiators and regenerative burners. Oxygen Enrichment By adding oxygen into the burners the temperature of the flame would increase. The technique was interesting but the problem with the increased temperature of the combustion air was the crucial factor. Also the fact that the increased temperature from the flame would affect the sealing negatively made this technique unsuitable. Heat radiators

2(4) At the same time with Fundia Wire's investigations Rautaruukki was also studying electrical radiator technique. The problem with the too big increase in combustion air temperature became soon evident. This alternative would also have caused rise to the actual investment cost due to the need for a transformation installation. Regenerative burners Low NOx regenerative burners were originally developed by Tokyo Gas. North American took the new type burner into production in 1993 and several hundred units have been installed since. The advantage for Fundia Wire with this new type of a burner was that the heat load on the recuperator would not increase even if the capacity were increased. As a result of this the regenerative technique was chosen. Experiences and results As mentioned the purpose for the new burners (Fig 1 & 2) was to increase the production speed from 66 to 72 tph. Already during the test period for an eight hours shift a production speed of 73.4 tph for the furnace was obtained. For a 24 hour period the production reached a speed of 66.6 tph. In neither case the furnace was a limitation. During the test period the aim was to reach as high production speed for a 300 t lot as possible. During the test the furnace was able to keep constant temperature when rolling at 78.9 tph.

Fig 1 & 2

One of a new pair of regenerative burners installed to the walking hearth reheating furnace of Dalsbruk wire rod mill (photos by UTAB AB)

Decarburisation One of the main criteria for the installation was that the decarburisation of the product should not increase. The decarburisation in the final product has decreased after the installation of regenerative burners (Fig 3).

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0,30

0,20 Decarburisation, %

Avg +3Std max min -3Std

0,10

Max accepted

0,00 Jan - Jun 1998 Jul - Dec 1998 22 Jan 1999

Fig 3 Decarburisation of HC wire rod

The NOx content was measured several times during the test period. The average values were 140 mg/MJ. During the measurements no carbon monoxide could be detected. When there was no production (regenerative burners were turned off) and as a result of that no load on the furnace the measured NOx value was as high as 260 mg/MJ. At the same time the CO content was 50 ppm. Another demand for the burner operation was no increase in NOx content in the combustion air. That requirement was also fulfilled. Oxide scale In order to measure the oxide scale we made a special arrangement. Big samples of oxide scale were collected from the roller table. The area and weight were measured. As a result it was estimated that the proportion of oxide scale on a billet was 0.54 %. Normally some part of the billets for rolling is shot blasted. Two billets of that type were used as a reference. Those billets were reheated in the furnace and let to cool down. Then the billets were shot blasted again. The weight difference before and after reheating of these billets was then calculated. Even if they were reheated next to each other, it originated some variation in the oxide scale. The amount of oxide scale was 1.3 - 1.6 %. In normal production it is estimated to lie between 0.8 - 1.0 %. This was to be confirmed with smaller samples gone through the furnace. The oxide formation was even far bigger in those small samples than in test billets and considered not being reasonable at all. Heavy fuel oil Dalsbruk rolling mill runs heavy fuel oil on all the burners both in new as well as the older conventional ones. As heavy fuel oil contains some asphaltenes, which do not burn totally, there are some unburned residues in the flue gases. Another unburned component is plain ash. Ash residue is typically 3 - 5 times higher in heavy fuel oil than in light fuel oil.

4(4) These unburned residues in flue gases seem to stick to the ceramic heat-exchange bed when the flue gases flow through it. It is merely speculation as no investigation has been carried out, but it also seems that it might render heat exchange from flue gases to the ceramic bed. This might be due to the fact that porosity of the bed decreases when the unburned residues stick to it. Cleaning of the bed is also somewhat difficult because the sticked residues are troublesome to remove. The cleaning is a fairly easy procedure taking about 10 hours per one bed in Dalsbruk. Instead of cleaning the bed only once a year it should and will be done at least twice or more per a year. Conclusions Fundia Wire installed a pair of new regenerative burners to a 30 years old walking hearth reheating furnace in order to increase the production speed. This technique was chosen because increasing the recuperator temperature in the existing furnace would have been unfeasible. The aimed production speed was obtained as well as the other targets regarding combustion air temperature and flue gas composition. The burning fuel however created a need to clean the heat-exchange bed more often than originally planned.