Milestone hit for Zhanjiang Steel’s new blast furnace

A milestone moment in the construction of Baowu Group’s Zhanjiang Steel has been achieved.

The stove domes for blast furnace 3 have now been completed, reports CISDI, who are package suppliers of the plant’s blast furnace 3.

The four top-combustion stoves each have a volume of 5,050 cubic metres. A single stove is 48.70 metres high and is designed to reach temperature up to 1,300 deg C.

Delivery and assembly was carefully planned to enable pre-fabricated shell construction and minimise work required on site.

Stove shells for the lower-temperature sections were delivered in complete rings. Those for high temperature sections were annealed and delivered as complete sections. Annealing removes welding stress and ensures long service life for the stove.

This annealing and delivery process has previously proved challenging. Zhanjiang’s success heralds a breakthrough in fast, reliable metallurgical construction and was achieved under extremely difficult circumstances.

The stove shells were manufactured at a workshop in Wuhan, the epicentre of China’s Covid-19 pandemic.

CISDI’s on-site supervisors remained on duty throughout the process, ensuring delivery of the shells ran to schedule.

Welding is completed on the last stove dome for Zhanjiang Steel’s BF 3