Oxygen Enhanced Ladle Preheating Systems: Improved Tap-to-tap Cycle Time and Operating Cost

Reductions
Authors:
James Kelly, Senior Process Specialist, Praxair R&D, Indianapolis, IN. James_Kelly@praxair.com
F. Dentella, ESA Pyronics International, Bergamo, Italy Dentella@esacombustion.it
A. Recanati, SIAD SpA, Bergamo, Italy Anselmo_Recanati@Praxair.com
Jorge Visus, Product manager, Combustion and Heat Treating, Praxair Espana, Madrid, Spain. Jorge_Visus@praxair.com
Emmanuel Miclo, Praxair SAS, Rungis, France1

Key Words: oxy-fuel, ladle, preheater, emissions, energy savings, productivity improvement

INTRODUCTION
Energy costs and stricter emissions requirements are a perennial concern of steelmakers. And although ladle preheating consumes a
relatively small portion of the overall energy budget of a steelmaking plant, it is an inefficient energy consumer and can benefit from
improvements in combustion technology. Furthermore, poor ladle preheating can have a large effect on the energy efficiency of the
largest energy consumers within the steelmaking shop, the EAF or BOF itself and the LMF station or other secondary metallurgical
facility with reheating capability. Modern steelmaking ladles need to be preheated to in excess of 2100 F which means that more than
60% of the fuel energy is exhausted to the stack when air fuel burners are used. Praxair’s Dilute Oxygen Combustion system provides
a means of cutting energy consumption by as much as a half, while also lowering carbon emissions and reducing NOx.

Adequate control of ladle brick temperature is critical to the operation of the modern steelmaking facility. Not only is it necessary for
temperature management at tap and during secondary treatment, it is also necessary for adequate control of temperature during
casting. Cold ladles can lead to excessive temperature drop during casting and in extreme cases inability to complete the cast. Figure
1 shows a schematic of the effect of time from end cast on a ladle to tap on the subsequent rate of temperature drop between the end of
secondary ladle treatment and the caster. As the time from end cast to tap extends, the rate of temperature loss and the variability in
the rate of temperature loss increases. The increase in variability is due to inconsistent use of covers and ladle preheaters. Ladles with
more than 120 minutes between end of cast and tap were consistently put on preheaters and show better temperature control than
ladles in the 90 to 120 minute group. When the expected time from end cast to tap was in the 60 to 90 minute range, operators noted
that ladles which were placed on the air fired preheaters tended to be colder than ladles which sat under a cover. Changing the
practice so that all ladles with more than 90 minutes from end cast to tap were preheated improved temperature uniformity. However,
ladles with end cast to tap times of more than 60 minutes continued to present significant temperature control issues. The air fired
preheaters were unable to rapidly bring ladles up to temperature and preheated ladles tended to be cold on the bottom. To compensate

Acknowledgement: The authors greatly appreciate the help of Kelly Tian, Robert Miller, Lee Rosen and Larry Cates in conducting
experiments, assembling data, and providing analyses of the data presented in this paper

AISTech 2010 Proceedings-Volume II 1047

 3.00
Rate of Temperature Loss (F/min)

2.50

2.00
Average
1.50 Min
Max
1.00

0.50

0.00
< 60 60 to 90 90 to 120 > 120
Time from End Cast to Tap (min)

Figure 1: Effect of end cast to tap time on the rate of temperature loss between the end of secondary processing and casting.
for the variability in ladle heat loss, primary steelmaking has to tap at a higher temperature resulting in some heats that are too hot at
secondary treatment Heats that are too hot or too cold at secondary treatment incur a penalty in process time potentially hurting shop
productivity. Higher tap temperatures incur an energy and process time penalty at primary steelmaking particularly in EAF shops.
Thus ladle preheating can have a large impact on the shop overall energy efficiency and productivity. Praxair’s oxyfuel based ladle
preheating systems offer rapid and uniform ladle heating which can catalyze significant improvements in shop productivity and in
overall energy consumption beyond the energy savings at the ladle preheaters themselves.

This paper discusses laboratory work to characterize the performance of Praxair’s oxyfuel technology in ladle preheating and outlines
the results from customer installations.
TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEW
Dilute Oxygen Combustion (DOC)
DOC technology, incorporated in the J/L (Jet/Lance) burners developed by Praxair, improves temperature uniformity, reduces NOx
and carbon emissions, and reduces the consumption of natural gas compared to air-fuel burners.

Patents covering the J/L Burner or DOC process or equipment include:

5,076,779 5,266,025 5,387,100
5,449,286 5,601,425 5,755,818
5,924,858 6,007,326 6,394,790
In Dilute Oxygen Combustion, the fuel gas and oxygen are injected separately via high velocity jets, creating rapid mixing of the fuel
and oxidant with the hot furnace gases. This mixing and dilution produces a thermally uniform heat release with low peak flame
temperatures. The uniform heat release results in more even temperature distribution throughout the furnace. The low flame
temperatures are key to inhibiting the production of thermal NOx.

DOC Concept
• Separate fuel and oxygen injection at high velocity
• Rapid dilution of fuel and oxygen with furnace gases
• Diffuse flame results in very uniform heating
• Low peak flame temperature minimizes NOx Production
The J-Burner portion of the J/L Burner consists of a fuel injection assembly retained within a concentric oxygen tube. The design of
the J-Burner makes use of Praxair’s “Coherent Jet” technology to delay mixing of the fuel gas and oxygen. This permits the J-Burner
to be recessed within the burner refractory block for protection from heat, without risk of damage due to combustion within the recess
cavity. The burner’s fuel assembly is tipped with a field replaceable nozzle, thereby permitting adjustment of flame characteristics.
The J-Burner includes a spark igniter and UV flame sensor for self ignition and flame safety requirements.

The Lance portion of the burner is used to inject oxygen whenever the furnace is above the fuel auto ignition temperature. It is
separated from the Jet by several inches in order to entrain furnace gases and prevent mixing of the oxygen and fuel close to the burner
thereby delaying combustion. This allows the oxygen to become “diluted” with the furnace gases and results in a much lower flame

1048 AISTech 2010 Proceedings-Volume II

temperature. Since combustion takes place throughout the furnace chamber instead of directly at the burner a more diffuse flame is
produced instead of a point heat source resulting in more even distribution of energy throughout the furnace.

Key Burner Characteristics:

• Field replaceable nozzles – allows different velocities to be selected. This allows luminosity, burner momentum, flame
intensity, flame length and heat flux profile to be controlled for each application
• Includes automatic spark ignition system and provisions for UV flame detector for use with flame safety
• Burner capacities of 6 to 9 mmBtu/hr
• Low maintenance
The characteristics of DOC technology are presented in greater detail elsewhere1

LABORATORY MEASUREMENTS
To characterize the performance of DOC technology in a ladle preheating type application, the ladle preheating process was simulated
in the laboratory. An existing high temperature furnace was modified to simulate a ladle with a cross-sectional area of 1600 inches
and depth of 91 inches. The furnace was lined with 8.75 inches of high alumina refractory. The air firing condition was simulated
with a 3.4 mmBTU/hr Bloom burner. A Praxair 2.4 mmBTU/hr JL burner was used to simulate the DOC oxyfuel firing condition.
Figure 2 shows the evolution of the burner firing rate over time. After 1 hour the DOC burner had heated the ladle to the temperature
setpoint of 2200°F at which point the burner firing rate started to modulate and within six hours had cut back to less than 1 mmBTU
per hour. The air fired burner took almost 3 hours before the setpoint temperature was reached and had only cut back to 1.8 mmBTU
per hour after six hours.

4.00 2500

3.50
2000
3.00
FiringRate (MMBtu/rh)

2.50 Ave FCE Temp (oF)

1500

2.00

1000
1.50

1.00
500
0.50

0.00 0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
Time (hr)

FiringRate - Air Burner FiringRate - JL Burner

Ave FCE Temp - Air Burner Ave FCE Temp - JL Burner
Figure 2: Comparison of the firing rate and temperature versus time for an air fired and a DOC fired preheater heating a cold
ladle to 2200 F.

DOC
Air Fired burner Improvement
Setpoint °F 2200 2200
Average Fce Temp °F 2224 2311
Cycle average FireRate mmBTU/hr 2.85 1.44 50%
Time to T min 170 70 59%
NOx lbs/mmBTU 0.073 0.044 40%
NOx lbs/hr 0.21 0.063 70%
Table 1: Summary statistics from ladle preheater comparison

AISTech 2010 Proceedings-Volume II 1049

Table 1 shows summary statistics from the ladle preheating tests. The DOC burner was able to heat the ladle to a higher temperature
in less time with 50% lower fuel consumption and 70% less total NOx output. The ladle average temperature was higher at the end of
the heating cycle for DOC even though for both burners the setpoint was 2200 °F. In the DOC test, the flame was purposely directed
towards the bottom of the ladle giving temperature increase with distance from the ladle mouth. With the control thermocouple placed
at the ladle mouth, there was approximately 200 °F temperature increase towards the ladle bottom.

Figure 3 compares the heat up profile of the two burners for the first hour with a simple spreadsheet model. The model is based on the
solution presented by Carslaw and Yeager2 for heat transfer at constant heat flux into an infinite slab starting at room temperature.
The model suggests that over the first 70 minutes of the heating cycle 85 percent of the heat energy from the fuel is available to heat
the refractory for the oxy fuel fired system. Less than 50 percent of the energy from the air fired system is available. The model does
not agree very well in the first 30 minutes of the heat up cycle. This is for two reasons. Firstly, when the ladle is cold a greater
percentage of the energy in the combustion gases is available to heat the refractory. Secondly, the thermocouples for measuring the
brick surface temperature were located slightly proud of the refractory surface so at low temperatures they were influenced quite
strongly by the temperature of the combustion gases. In the first 30 minutes of the heat up, the thermocouple reading reflects more on
the surrounding gas temperature than the surface temperature of the refractory itself.

2500
Average Brick Surface Temperature (F)

2000

1500 JL actual
JL model
Air Fired Actual
1000 Air Fired Model

500

0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
Time Since Start Heating (min)

Figure 3: Initial temperature rise versus simple heating model

INSTALLATION
Installation of the DOC burner technology on existing preheaters is a simple matter of installing a flow control skid for the fuel and
oxygen flow and a burner block in the ladle preheater cover. The volume of flue gases is reduced by 8 fold, so any flues in the
existing covers can be closed and the waste gases can be vented through the gap between the preheater cover and the ladle. The
reduction in volume of flue gases greatly reduces the potential for damage to the cover, the burner block and the cover support system
over the life of the cover system. As with any ladle preheat application, controlling the gap between the cover and the ladle is
important for maximizing efficiency.

Figure 4 shows a view of the hot face and the cold face of the burner installation. The reader will note that the dimensions of the
piping are considerably reduced from a typical air fired installation. This installation includes a connection from the preexisting
combustion air fan. This fan is only operated in ladle dryout mode to provide excess air to help remove moisture and maintain the
slow temperature ramp necessary for ladle dryout. The ladle cover shows a flue which was closed off after installation of the oxy fuel

1050 AISTech 2010 Proceedings-Volume II

 Benefit
Fuel Tap Ladle Aborted
Customer Consumption Temperature Life Cold Ladles casts
A 50% No Change Improved Improved Reduced
B Not documented Improved Reduced
C 50% 40°F decrease No change No change No change
D 50% 11°F decrease No change No change No change
E 51% No Change No change No change No change
F 50% No Change No change No change No change
Table 2: Operating results achieved at various customer sites

burner. Table 2 shows results from various customers who have used Praxair oxyfuel fired ladle preheating systems. In all the cases
the expected 50% reduction in fuel consumption has been achieved. Customer C was able to use oxyfuel preheating to great
advantage by reducing the tap temperature and as a result saving considerably on electrical power in the furnace. This customer
increased the preheater setpoint temperature by 500 °F to 2350 °F and still achieved a 50% reduction in fuel consumption. The net
worth of the savings was about $0.3 per ton of steel produced. Other customers (D and E) have achieved significant savings in
electrical energy for secondary steelmaking although the magnitudes of these savings have not been documented. Customer B noted
that the performance at the caster improved significantly with much lower temperature drop during the course of teaming. This
reduced the number of short casts and improved the liquid process yield.

(a) (b)
Figure 4: Typical DOC type ladle preheater installation showing the piping connections on the cold face (a) and the hot face of
the burner block (b).

AISTech 2010 Proceedings-Volume II 1051

 2990
Average Furnace Tap Temperature (°F)

2980

2970

2960

2950

2940

2930

2920
Air Fired 1850 2000 2100 2200 2250 2350
Preheater Setpoint (°F)

Figure 5: Change in average furnace tap temperature with increases in the ladle preheater setpoint

Over a period of 3 months after the startup of the oxyfuel ladle preheating system customer C found that it could increase the ladle
preheat temperature setpoint and achieve significant process benefits. In particular, it could reduce the tap temperature and still obtain
good temperature control through secondary metallurgy and the caster. Figure 5 illustrates how the increasing ladle preheater setpoint
temperature influenced the tap temperature at the furnace. This reduction in tap temperature had a positive effect on furnace tap to tap
times which in turn allowed improvements in shop productivity. At the highest preheat temperature setpoint, the slag would start to
melt on the ladle walls and bottom if the preheat time was extended. Care was taken to ensure ladle preheat times were not excessive.

Table 3 breaks down the economics achieved at customer C. The actual fuel, oxygen and energy costs are hypothetical customer
values and not representative of prices extant at the startup at this customer. In this scenario the savings achieved are $0.29/tonne.
These savings do not include the benefit of improved productivity and actual results may vary from those achieved by customer C.

Air Fuel Preheating Oxy-fuel Preheating

Natural Gas 0.055 mmBTU/T 0.027 mmBTU/T
0.055 x 6.0 = $ 0.33/T 0.027x6.0 = $0.16/T
Oxygen $0.00/T 54 scf/T
0.54x0.25=$0.14/T
$ 0.33/T $ 0.30/T
Gas subtotal
0.16x40 = 6.4 KW/T $ 0.00/T
Electricity
6.4 x 0.04 = $0.26/T
Total $0.59 T $ 0.30/T
Table 3: Breakdown of oxyfuel preheating economics at customer C based on hypothetical fuel ($6/mmBTU), oxygen
($0.25/100 scf) and electricity prices ($0.04/KWhr).

CONCLUSION
Dilute Oxygen Combustion technology has been proven in the laboratory and in commercial furnace installations to provide more
uniform temperature distribution, reduce NOx and carbon emissions, and consume less fuel than conventional combustion
technologies. Since the development of this technology by Praxair in the late 1990’s, it has been successfully applied to glass making
furnaces, metal reheat furnaces, and other applications. In the ladle preheating application it offers over 50% fuel savings, 70%
reduction in NOx emissions and improved ability to heat ladles in a more timely and effective fashion. The customer experience has
shown that the improved ladle heating performance leads to significant shop operational benefits including the ability to lower tap
temperatures, improve process time at secondary metallurgy and improve performance at the caster. The magnitude of the combined

1052 AISTech 2010 Proceedings-Volume II

energy savings can reach $0.29 per ton of steel produced. Benefits from improved productivity due to faster processing at the furnace,
secondary metallurgy and the caster can be much greater.

REFERENCES

1. Cates, Larry “Improved Temperature Uniformity in Batch Reheat Furnaces with Praxair’s Dilute Oxygen Combustion (DOC)
technology”, in AIST conference proceedings “The Iron and Steel Technology Conference and Exposition AISTech 2010”
May 3-6, 2010.
2. Carslaw, H.S. and J.C. Yeager “Conduction of Heat in Solids” 2nd Ed. Clarendon Press, Oxford 1959.

AISTech 2010 Proceedings-Volume II 1053