Open-Hearth Process

Essentially the production of steel from pig iron by any process consists of burning out the excess carbon and other impurities present in the iron. One difficulty in the manufacture of steel is its high melting point, about 1370° C, which prevents the use of ordinary fuels and furnaces. To overcome this difficulty the open-hearth furnace was developed; this furnace can be operated at a high temperature by regenerative preheating of the fuel gas and air used for combustion in the furnace. In regenerative preheating, the exhaust gases from the furnace are drawn through one of a series of chambers containing a mass of brickwork and give up most of their heat to the bricks. Then the flow through the furnace is reversed and the fuel and air pass through the heated chambers and are warmed by the bricks. Through this method open-hearth furnaces can reach temperatures as high as 1650° C. The furnace itself consists typically of a flat, rectangular brick hearth about 6 m by 10 m, which is roofed over at a height of about 2.5 m. In front of the hearth a series of doors opens out onto a working floor in front of the hearth. The entire hearth and working floor are one story above ground level, and the heat-regenerating chambers of the furnace take up the space under the hearth. A furnace of this size produces about 100 metric tons of steel every 11 hr. The furnace is charged with a mixture of pig iron (either molten or cold), scrap steel, and iron ore that provides additional oxygen. Limestone is added for flux and fluorspar to make the slag more fluid. The proportions of the charge vary within wide limits, but a typical charge might consist of 56,750 kg of scrap steel, 11,350 kg of cold pig iron, 45,400 kg of molten pig iron, 11,800 kg of limestone, 900 kg of iron ore, and 230 kg of fluorspar. After the furnace has been charged, the furnace is lighted and the flames play back and forth over the hearth as their direction is reversed by the operator to provide heat regeneration. Chemically the action of the open-hearth furnace consists of lowering the carbon content of the charge by oxidization and of removing such impurities as silicon, phosphorus, manganese, and sulfur, which combine with the limestone to form slag. These reactions take place while the metal in the furnace is at melting heat, and the furnace is held between 1540° and 1650° C for many hours until the molten metal has the desired carbon content. Experienced open-hearth operators can often judge the carbon content of the metal by its appearance, but the melt is usually tested by withdrawing a small amount of metal from the furnace, cooling it, and subjecting it to physical examination or chemical analysis. When the carbon content of the melt reaches the desired level, the furnace is tapped through a hole at the rear. The molten steel then flows through a short trough to a large ladle set below the furnace at ground level. From the ladle the steel is poured into cast-iron molds that form ingots usually about 1.5 m long and 48 cm square. These ingots, the raw material for all forms of fabricated steel, weigh approximately 2.25 metric tons in this size. Recently, methods have been put into practice for the continuous processing of steel without first having to go through the process of casting ingots.

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