Lu Ming

Chapter 140 Steelmaking
The round hearth has been filled with charge.For the iron quality of the Ming Dynasty, the lining of this electric furnace is alkaline. The bottom of the furnace is covered with a layer of lime, and above the lime layer is a layer of iron oxide and charcoal powder, and above that is some pig iron accumulated in the base during the past few days. Ingots and a small amount of wrought iron - the ship from Hangzhou is still on the way, and this is the only two and a half tons of pig iron.

Unlike open hearth and blast furnaces, which once turned on must be kept running, day and night.The advantage of the electric furnace is here: it can be turned on and off at any time, it can be smelted continuously if there is material, and it is not expected to go home after get off work to play with his wife.

This is currently the most suitable steelmaking method for raw materials in the kiln area. The only disadvantage is that it consumes a lot of energy.

Following Chen Jingtai's order, Zou Guoqing, the guest operator in the control room, pressed the button with a smile on his face.At this time, a black graphite electrode column on the top of the electric furnace slowly fell down. After the electrode was inserted into the furnace, it immediately produced a violent arc reaction with the bottom electrode, and the smelting began.

First, there was regular, bright light coming out of the gap in the furnace cover, and then as the electrode column deepened, the arc increased, the temperature rose sharply, and the light began to become intense. It becomes like a disco, with bright and dark flickering.Soon, the pig iron began to melt into a liquid. At this time, with the flickering of the arc, fiery red iron slag sprayed out from the gap, and billowing smoke and hot wind also came out of the furnace at the same time.

Booming, flashing, thick smoke, fire rain... At this moment in the furnace, it seems that there is a bad-quality ghost film crew in action, and the sound and light effects are perfect.

Seeing that the smoke collection system above his head started to work normally, Chen Jingtai heaved a sigh of relief. Up to now, the melting period has passed safely, and everything in the system is operating normally.Looking back at the Xikes standing outside the security line, he found that there were still a few old men who had never been in the industry whose faces were a little pale. Chen Jingtai grinned slightly—this kind of DC electric furnace with a rectifier is already considered a movement It's very small and very advanced. I think the old-fashioned AC electric stove when I was an apprentice was called ferocious.

As the solid in the furnace was completely transformed into liquid, Chen Jingtai commanded the control room to adjust the depth of the electrode column insertion. When the molten steel in the furnace was rolling smoothly, the lime in the previous charge had fully reacted with the pig iron. scum.

The slag discharge will discharge part of sulfur and phosphorus, and the crane above the head moves slowly at this time, a bright yellow suspender with a steel claw slides above the electric furnace—the slag scraper.The steel claws easily scoop up the waste slag floating on the molten steel in the violent smoke dust and splashing molten steel, and the whole process does not require human operation.

The dispensable plug-in of the slag extractor was imported by Chen Jingtai: a completely inexperienced furnace worker from the Chuanzhong Heming people ran to the front of the furnace to extract slag every day in the environment of high-temperature flue gas and steel slag spraying. Dangerous work is completely unsuitable for the current situation. Every cross-traveler and Mingren furnace worker is extremely precious. If we don’t import slag scrapers now, we have to import them if there are too many people waiting to die.

After the slag is discharged, the environment in the furnace enters the next stage from the melting stage: the oxidation stage. The purpose of this stage is mainly to remove phosphorus and decarburization.

Theoretically, it is necessary to blow oxygen into the furnace at this time - it can not only decarburize, but also accelerate the reaction in the furnace, and the violent carbon and oxygen bubbles float up, which can bring up all the waste slag, which can serve multiple purposes.But, right now there is no pure oxygen in the crossing crowd. After Chen Jingtai added a little lime into the furnace, he waited for the furnace to react by itself. This is tantamount to avoiding some processes by consuming electricity.

After 40 minutes of starting the furnace, he got the results of the on-site test and found that the phosphorus content of the molten steel had reached the requirements, so he ordered the second slag extraction, and then closed all the outlets, and the furnace entered the next stage: the reduction period.

The reduction period is also unique to electric furnaces, which is different from traditional steelmaking furnaces such as blast furnace converters. The purpose of this stage is deoxidation and desulfurization.

At present, the kiln area base lacks various minerals and metals, and temporarily cannot produce qualified deoxidizers such as silicon-aluminum powder, so this first furnace of steel is still using imported composite deoxidizers, which can deoxidize and desulfurize very well.During the final reduction period in the furnace, Chen Jingtai added 3 kg of deoxidizer and some lime, and then continued to wait for the reaction in the furnace.

At this time, it is basically considered a success—one hour and 15 minutes after the electrodes were activated, the first furnace of molten steel in the crossover was officially ready to be released.

This speed is already very slow: it only takes 25 minutes for a large-scale quantum electric arc furnace to produce a furnace of molten steel.However, because many conditions are not met here, the only way to ensure product quality is to extend the time and increase power consumption. There is no way to delay it for an hour.

After reading the second test report, Chen Jingtai officially ordered the steel to be tapped: the most important phosphorus and sulfur content in the molten steel has passed the standard, other trace elements are a bit excessive, and the carbon content of the entire furnace of molten steel is between low-carbon and medium-carbon steel .But this is not important, it's just a small flaw, as long as the phosphorus and sulfur hazards are in place, the rest can be solved by adjusting the process later.

The graphite electrode column that has turned red slowly rises, and then the control room begins to manipulate the ladle on the slide rail to move forward. The next moment, the ladle lined with refractory bricks is in place, and the molten steel is officially released.If it is continuous smelting, then a part of the molten steel should be left in the furnace, but today is a test version, and the poor ghosts don't have extra pig iron ingots, so today is this furnace.

When the electric furnace is tilted 15 degrees by the hydraulic system, the eccentric bottom outlet begins to flow out molten steel and inject it into the ladle - here is a set of technology trees that can be lighted up: high-end refining outside the furnace.

The so-called extra-furnace refining, simply put, is to inject oxygen or inert gas into the ladle, and then carry out the above-mentioned various impurity removal processes selectively, so as to achieve the purpose of purifying molten steel and adjusting the content of elements. Basically, it is relatively Awesome alloy steel grades have to pass this level.

Of course, the time-travelers don't need to do this.

As long as the process is adjusted properly, the molten steel coming out of the electric arc furnace in front of me can completely meet the standard of carbon steel in the future.Low-carbon steel is used to make reinforced steel plates, high-carbon steel is used to make tools and gun barrels, and stainless steel will be added at most in the future. This is enough to travel through the world and use it to death. There is no need to order extra technology trees.

After the ladle is filled with three-quarters of boiling molten steel, it starts to move forward along the slide rail: a row of molds made of molding sand have already been prepared, and this moment is waiting.At this time, the trembling Ming Furnace Worker stepped forward, and according to the operation procedure during the training, he slowly shook the runner next to the ladle. At this time, the ladle was slightly tilted, and the molten steel flowed into the batch of molds along the chute in the next moment.

(End of this chapter)