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Studies on Energy Consumption of Melting

Furnaces and Energy Conservation Options in
Foundries

Conference Paper · January 2008

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Abhilash Edacherian mangalam antony Joseph

King Khalid University National Institute of Technology Calicut
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 ENERGY 2008, NIT Calicut

Studies on Energy Consumption of Melting Furnaces and Energy

Conservation Options in Foundries

E. Abhilash and M.A. Joseph

Department of Mechanical Engineering,
National Institute of Technology Calicut, India. PIN-673601
e-mail: abhilash.e@gmail.com and joseph@nitc.ac.in

ABSTRACT

Energy deficiency has been a source of concern to all nations and particularly countries
like India, which has yet to reach the state of self-sufficiency in the various energy
sources. To overcome the problems of energy deficiency, increasing cost and growing
demand, a whole hearted effort should be made to conserve and optimize the energy
available and utilize the resources to full extent. Conceiving the fact that metallurgical
industries and foundries are highly energy intensive, this paper discusses some of the
options to obtain maximum of energy performance of foundry units based on a
comprehensive literature survey and valuable inputs obtained from the experts and
workers amongst the organized foundry units that authors have visited and interacted.
Based on the energy conservation studies, it was observed that a reduction from an
existing 680 kWh to an optimum specific energy consumption of 500 kWh per tonne of
liquid metal amounts to a potential saving of rupees 2 lakhs per year on energy cost for
a unit producing 350 tonnes of light steel castings per year (at an average yield of 58%).
Guidelines in regard of energy conservation in foundries are also presented.

KEYWORDS: Arc Furnaces, Induction Furnaces, Energy consumption and Energy

Conservation

1. INTRODUCTION

At the time of independence the installed capacity of power in India was 1362 MW
constituting only thermal & hydro and now grew to above 1 lakh MW. Projected
demand by 2012 is 2.5 lakhs MW. Corresponding to a marginal increment in electricity
production to a total of 693.4 crore unit, state power consumption is increased to 5
million units per day during the last one year [1]. This growing demand and rising cost
of electricity coupled with interrupted power supply have spurred a great deal of interest
in conservation in many quarters. The main reason that its achievement is fraught with
difficulties is the non availability of information on (i) norms for energy consumption
(ii)break up of energy balance, which can enable probing into the conservation
possibilities in a scientific manner.

Energy audit is an efficient tool in defining and pursuing a comprehensive

energy management programme. Careful audit will provide the organization a plan with
which it can effectively manage the plant energy system at minimum energy cost.
Understanding and implementing the energy conservation principles and guidelines
would be useful for industries in combating escalating energy costs and thus to reap
several other benefits like improved production, better quality, higher profits, lower
emissions etc. In the beginning of nineties, India witnessed a number of studies on

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 ENERGY 2008, NIT Calicut

energy conservation [2] and its implementations [3]. To cite an example, India’s first
private energy service company (ESCO), INTESCO-Bhoruka has implemented an
energy efficiency project at Bhoruka Steel's Karnataka mini-mill in 1995. With
successful implementation of this project, this Bangalore based ESCO could reduce
energy costs, and increase plant productivity.

The current global foundry scenario and the rapid growth of automobile
industry, which is expected to touch an annual turnover of USD 145 billions by the year
2016 from the current level of USD 34 billions, offers a great opportunity to foundries.
Now, India is one of the largest producers of casting and cast components. Indian
casting production jumped from 3.12 million tonnes in 2001 to 6.11 million tonnes in
2005-2006. Indian foundry industry is expected to grow by 8-9% in the next 5 years to
touch 10.5 million tonnes by 2010 [4]. These interesting figures will invite ones
attention to energy sector as metallurgical industries and foundries are energy intensive.
Major power consuming departments in a foundry industry are melting, environmental
control, utilities or materials handling, moulding and finishing departments. From Fig.1,
showing power distribution among these sections in a typical organized foundry [5], it is
obvious that the effect of shortage of energy and increasing cost of energy will directly
affect the competitiveness and profitability of the foundry industry.

Transmission Losses
3.47%
Input power
100%
Available Power after Loss
96.53%

Melting Environmental Control Utilities Moulding Finishing

83.25% 5.33% 2.97% 2.80% 2.18%

Furnace Auxiliary Sand Plant Mixer

78.76% 4.49% 1.0% 1.80%

Melting Holding Cooling Pumps Crane & Hoist

69.52% 9.24% 3.86% 0.63%

Fig. 1. Power distribution tree in a typical organized foundry.

2. ORGANISATIONAL OVERVIEW

A brief overview of the organizations in which preliminary energy audit and academic
survey was carried out is presented here in sub sections.

2.1. Steel Complex Limited

Steel Complex Ltd. (SCL) is the only mini steel plant in Kerala. The Company was
originally promoted in the joint sector between the Kerala State Industrial Development
Corporation Ltd. (KSIDC) and a private entrepreneur in 1969. SCL set up its mini steel
plant in 1972 with installed capacity of 37,000 tonnes per annum. The Company

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 ENERGY 2008, NIT Calicut

commenced commercial production in September 1973. In 1983 SCL undertook

expansion scheme by adding the third electric arc furnace, by which the production
capacity was raised to 55,000 tonnes per annum. The operation of the company then
improved and SCL earned substantial profits during 1984-86. Steel making by melting
various grades of good quality scrap, hot briquetted iron (HBI), iron ore and pig iron
and refining the same in electric arc furnace is adopted in SCL. The company has three
electric arc furnaces of 10/12T capacity each and a twin-strand continuous casting
machine designed by Concast-AG, Zurich. Besides these, the company has various
auxiliary equipments like 25/5T EOT Cranes, Water Treatment Plant, 110/11KV
substation, full-fledged metallurgical laboratory, etc. The steel produced here is strictly
confirming to BIS specification falling under Mild, Medium Carbon and Spring Steel
qualities and is cast into 100 mm sq. billets. The billets are further rolled and converted
into constructional steel of various sections at rolling mills and marketed by SCL.

2.2. Peekay Steel Castings Private Limited

Peekay Steel Castings (P) Ltd is a modern state-of-the-art Foundry located at Calicut
(Kozhikode) in Kerala on the West Coast of India. It was established in 1991.Major
poducts are high quality steel castings made of carbon steel, alloy steel, stainless steel,
nickel based alloy steel, duplex steel etc in various sizes and weighing up to 11500 kg
per piece for petrochemical industry, water supply, earth moving, mining, automobile
and other engineering industries. The annual production capacity is 5400 MT. The
castings are produced to ASTM, DIN, EN, JIS and other international specifications.
Major departments in the organization are pattern shop, melting, molding shop, heat
treatment, machine shop, methods &development and inspection and testing. Melting
department has 9T, 6T, 5T, 3T, 500 kg, 250 kg and 150 kg medium frequency induction
melting furnaces. Organization also has API calibrated (by TUV) ceramic fiber lined
and temperature controlled electric & oil fired heat treatment furnace of various
capacities 6000 kg, 9000 kg & 1000 kg operating up to 1200oC. Monthly production
and despatch in tonnes of light steel castings (10 kg-30 kg) is shown below using a
histogram plot (Fig. 2).
Monthly Production/Despatch (Tonnes)
35
32
30.1
30 29.3
27.8 27.9 28.2
27.2
26.3
25.5 25.2
Production/Despatch (Tonnes)

25
22.3

20 19.2

Production Despatch
15

10

0
June July August September October November
Month of 2007

Fig. 2. Monthly production and despatch in tonnes of light steel castings.

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 ENERGY 2008, NIT Calicut

3. ENERGY CONSUMPTION IN MELTING FURNACES

Melting furnaces are insulated enclosures designed to deliver heat at very high
temperatures to process solid materials into their liquid phase. Other major industrial
heat processing are shaping operations (forging, rolling etc.) which use high
temperatures, treating operations (surface hardening, sintering etc.) at mid range
temperatures and low temperature operations such as drying, polymerizing and other
chemical changes. Furnaces in which the temperature is below 650 oC are commonly
called “oven” in North America even though coke ovens operates at a temperature
above 1470 oC. In the ceramic industries furnaces are called kilns and in chemical
industry furnaces may be termed as heaters, burners or incinerators [6].

Trinks et al. in their book entitled “Industrial furnaces” have greatly extended
the coverage of how best one can use the furnaces and how one can adjust the changing
modes of furnace operations and controls, providing valuable insight in the areas where
experience counts as much as analytical skills. This section discusses energy
consumption for melting ferrous alloys in electric arc furnace and induction furnaces,
which are in use in aforementioned organizations. The data obtained from the
preliminary energy audit was used to calculate electricity charge per month based on
present electricity tariff Rs. 2.9 per unit and Rs. 245 per kVA. This data as shown in
Table 1 helps in cost analysis involved in energy conservation studies. Discussion is
made separately according to melting furnaces checking the possibilities of energy
conservation.

Table 1. Electricity charge per month calculated from the preliminary energy
audit data.

Contract Maximum Demand (kVA) Energy Consumption (kWh) Electricity

Organization Demand Charge (INR)/
Normal Peak Off Peak Normal Peak Off Peak
(kVA) Month

Peekay Steel
4000 4000 2400 4800 577520 72520 354160 47,54,562.00
Heavy
Foundry unit

Steel 4000 4509 4439 4686 609400 203133 402204 48,23,237.00

Complex Ltd

3.1. Arc Furnace

An electric arc furnace (EAF) used for steelmaking consists of a refractory-lined vessel,
usually water-cooled in larger sizes, covered with a retractable roof, and through which
one or ore graphite electrodes enter the furnace. The basic set-up of an electric arc
furnace consists of a shell, which consists of the sidewalls and lower steel 'bowl'; a
hearth, which consists of the refractory that lines the lower bowl; a roof, which may be
refractory-lined or water-cooled, and can be shaped as a section of a sphere, or as a
frustum (conical section). The roof also supports the refractory delta in its centre,
provided to move graphite electrodes (usually three), which give out high temperature
arc when placed in proximity to the scrap.

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 ENERGY 2008, NIT Calicut

The production capacity of an EAF varies at different plants depending mainly

on the batch size (normally between 50 and 150 tonnes) and power input. The Steel
Complex Limited, Calicut uses three 5 MVA furnace of capacity 11.5 tonne to produce
steel of different grades, operating one at a time. Depending on the availability of scrap
7-8 heats per day and 40-50 heats per week /batch is given to produce quality steel
billets. Even though the organization could improve the power factor to 0.92 using
capacitor banks, and also could bring down the specific energy consumption to 670
kWh from 800 kWh, a wide scope exists in energy conservation since the theoretical
minimum amount of energy required to melt a tonne of scrap steel is 300 kWh (melting
point 1520°C/2768°F). Fig. 3 shows weekly energy consumption in melting ferrous
alloys in EAF used in Steel Complex Limited. Above plot also indicates weekly energy
lost by not keeping a benchmark of 500 kWh per tonne even though international
benchmark of 440 kWh per tonne is possible to achieve using advanced EAF. Also, it
can be studied from the figure that 21 percentage of the total weekly energy
consumption can be saved.

Energy Consumption and Cost Analysis

350000 195000

311550
292790 298150 190000
300000 188790

Amount that could have been saved (INR)

274700
185000
250000
Energy Consumed (kWh)

180670 180000
200000 177422
KWh Consumed
175000
KWh Lost
150000
Amount that could have been saved (INR)
170000

100000 166460
165000
61180 62300 65100
57400
50000
160000

0 155000
First Second Third Fourth
Week of September 2007

Fig. 3. Weekly energy consumption (kWh) and amount that could have been saved
by keeping the optimum specific energy consumption.

3.2. Induction Furnace

In an induction furnace (IF) heat is applied by induction heating of a conductive

medium (usually a metal) in a crucible around which water-cooled magnetic coils are
wound. The advantage of the induction furnace is a clean, energy-efficient,
environmental friendly and well-controllable melting process compared to most other
means of metal melting. From the survey carried out at Peekay Steels, Calicut, it was
observed that 6 tonne furnace rated 2000 kW had been taking 2 hours per heat and 1500
kW rated 3 tonne & 5 tonne medium frequency furnaces had been taking 1.5 hours per
heat and 3 hrs per heat respectively. Assessing the data obtained by operating 1500 kW
rated 3 tonne capacity furnace in their light steel foundry department (shown in Fig. 4),
and calculating the ratio of half yearly consumption in melting; 114784 units of
electricity to the lost units of 30384 by not keeping optimum specific energy
consumption, it is obvious that 26% of energy is lost in melting process.

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 ENERGY 2008, NIT Calicut

Energy Consumption and Cost Analysis

25000 16000

15712.2
15500
20468
19924 15294.6

Amount that could have been saved (INR)

20000 18904 18972 19176
15000
17340
Energy consumption (KWh)

14720.4
14511.6 14563.8 14500
15000

KWh Consumed
14000
KWh Lost
10000 Amount that could have been saved (INR)
13500
13311

5274 5004 5418 5022 5076 13000

4590
5000

12500

0 12000
June July August September October November
Month of 2007

Fig. 4. Monthly energy consumption (kWh) and amount that could have been
saved by keeping the optimum specific energy consumption.

3. ENERGY CONSERVATION OPTIONS IN FOUNDRIES

From the Fig. 1, pointing various power consuming sections in a typical organized
foundry, it can be observed that major power consuming section is melting which
consumes 83.25% of input power compared to other units namely environment &
control, utilities, moulding and finishing sections which consumes 5.35%, 2.57%, 2.8%
and 2.18% respectively. Even though, Indian benchmark for specific energy
consumption is high 650 to 700 kWh in melting ferrous alloys, optimum specific energy
consumption of 500 kWh (with reference to the Table 2) is used in the analysis to assess
the potential of energy conservation in afore mentioned organization wherein
preliminary audit was carried out. Fig. 4 and Fig. 5 shows amount that could have saved
by keeping the optimum specific energy consumption in melting with reference to these
organizations. From the Fig. 4, it can also be learned that a monthly saving of 15
percentage of production cost is possible by achieving the benchmark of 500 kWh per
tonne.

Table 2. Optimum specific energy consumption of industrial products [7].

Optimum Specific
Energy
Industrial Products
Consumption
(kWh/ Tonne)
Steel rolling mill 30-40
Steel (Arc furnace) 500-530
Steel (Induction furnace) 470-500
Aluminium 1300
Paper mill 700-800
Milk 50-55
Fertilizer 15-20
Cement 87-110

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 ENERGY 2008, NIT Calicut

Judicious installation of furnaces depending on the product, upgrading to state of the art
technologies based on SWOT Analysis, good house keeping, carrying out regular
energy audit at an interval and creating awareness on energy conservation will surely
make Indian foundry organizations to achieve the international benchmarks.

Energy (kWh) = Input Power (kW) x Cycle Time (Hour)

From the above basic expression for energy, it can be apprehended that energy can be
conserved in melting by reducing the input power and cycle time in preparation of melt.

Input power can be controlled by:

1. Reducing transmission loss by using harmonic filters.

2. Adopting best lining practices of furnaces.
3. Preheating the charge materials.
4. Maximizing continuous utilization of the furnace.
5. Avoiding the super heating of melt.
6. Implementing reorganization strategies for achieving optimal load of
transformers
7. Using UPFC (Unified Power Flow Controllers)
8. Using APFC devices (Automatic Power Factor Correction) [8].

Total cycle time of melting operation constitute of individual activities (i) Melting
(45%) (ii) Charging (35%) (iii) Composition and Temperature Control (6%) (iv) De-
slagging (4%) (v) Tapping (10%) [9]. Thus cycle time in melt preparation can be
reduced by:

1. Reducing charging time by using automated feeding mechanisms like

continuous feeders or vibro-chargers instead of charging manually with magnet
as observed at Steel Complex Limited Calicut.
2. Reducing melting time by (a) using sophisticated control devices to track the
changing impedance to deliver optimum power through out melting cycle (b) by
improving the bulk density of the charging materials (c) by reducing the
radiation losses using closed capture hood since for a medium-sized induction
coreless furnace melting iron, the average radiation loss will be equivalent to
10–15 kWh for every minute the cover is open [10].
3. Reducing time for composition adjustment by (a) exactly weighing and charging
using charge hopper and furnace on load cells to achieve right composition at the
first check.(b) using good quality scrap measured using spectrometers for iron
contents ( HBI , pellet form DRI are good choice to get good iron yield).
4. Reducing de-slagging time by (a) using clean input charge materials (shot
blasted foundry returns) (b) using back tilting mechanism for quick slag
removal.
5. Reducing tapping time by (a) tapping all the metal at a single stretch transfer
through launder system instead of batch type transfer through ladles (b) by
avoiding superheating of metal by undergoing online monitoring & controlling
of tapping temperature using contact type measurement through thermocouple
(Pt-Pt/Rh) or through Infra Red pyrometers.

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 ENERGY 2008, NIT Calicut

4. CONCLUSIONS

A wide scope exists for conservation of energy in foundry sector is obvious from this
study providing information on energy consumptions and cost analysis based on
optimum specific energy consumption of melting furnaces. Adhering to the usage of
rudimentary technologies without giving importance to technological advancement and
unsound operational practices are major causes clogging to contribute to the process of
environmental as well as energy conservations. With judicious application and
implementation of correct energy auditing and monitoring techniques at regular
intervals, it is possible to achieve energy conservation in Indian foundries. Cluster and
prosper is new concept put forward by the Indian Institute of Foundrymen to make the
foundry units energy efficient and achieve considerable economy by saving energy a
well as labour cost giving due consideration to environmental control.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Authors acknowledge the help and cooperation extended by the authorities of Steel
Complex limited, Calicut and Peekay Steels, Calicut for conducting a preliminary
energy audit and an academic survey in their organization.

REFERENCES

1. http:// www.kseboard.com
2. Khosla, S.M. (1989), Energy Conservation Efficiency and Management in
Industry and Plants, BICS booksellers and Publishers, New Delhi.
3. Khosla, S.M. (1992), Energy Audit, Institute of Management and Control, New
Delhi.
4. http://www.wfcindia08.com
5. http://www.greenbusinesscentre.com
6. Trinks,W. et al, (2004), Industrial Furnaces, 6th ed., John Wiley and Sons Inc.,
New York.
7. Pabla, A. S. (2005), Electric Power Distribution, McGraw-Hill Professional,
New York.
8. Tripathy, S.C. (1991), Electric Energy Utilisation and Conservation, Tata
McGraw Hill Publishing Company Ltd., New Delhi
9. Kamalesh Kumar Singh (2007), “ Energy Efficiency in Foundry by Process and
Casting Rejection Control”, Indian Foundry Journal, 53(11) , 43-55.
10. http://www.oee.nrcan.gc.ca

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