In the end, the plan they decided on was to use a blast furnace to make ferrosilicon and then a converter to make silicon steel.
He looked at the various plans on the table and stretched. From outside the window, he could see the soaring flames of Ma Niao No. 1 and No. 2 blast furnaces in the distance - these two large blast furnaces were a bit wasteful for smelting ferrosilicon.
For this purpose, the Planning Institute specially approved the project to build a small blast furnace in Ma Niao Iron and Steel Company to specifically refine ferrosilicon.
The "Special Number" blast furnace is currently undergoing its second drying operation. Compared with the 125 cubic meters of Ma Niao No. 1 and No. 2 blast furnaces, the Special Number blast furnace is a mini-type with only 30 cubic meters. However, due to the close proximity
The No. 1 and No. 2 blast furnaces can make full use of the high-temperature exhaust gas output from these two blast furnaces, especially the specially built large hot blast furnaces.
These powerful conditions allow the smelting temperature of the special blast furnace to be easily raised to a sufficient temperature. Smelting ferrosilicon requires a high temperature of more than 1800C, and hot air of more than 500C must be continuously blown into the furnace. This is very difficult for ordinary small blast furnaces.
Conditions that are difficult to achieve, but are not a problem for the Ma Niao blast furnace group that has a dedicated large hot blast furnace.
Now we just need to wait for the oven to be completed before we can test the first furnace of ferrosilicon. The raw materials prepared for ferrosilicon smelting have also been shipped: quartz sand, pig iron, coke... We just have to wait for the blast furnace to open and we can start experimental testing.
Refined.
The phone on his desk suddenly rang. He picked up the phone and saw that the call was from the shift leader of the special blast furnace. He reported that the intermittent blasting of the coke oven had ended, and new coke was now being put in.
Carry out uninterrupted continuous blowing work.
"Very good, continue to operate according to the work schedule." Ji Wusheng ordered. The oven work had lasted for 48 hours. Ji Wusheng looked at the schedule and saw that the first formal feeding would be in about 4 hours.
It started. He decided to take a nap first: once the furnace was turned on, he would probably have to stare at it for 24 hours straight.
Ji Wusheng woke up on time one hour before starting the furnace. He washed his face and put on his work clothes. Several apprentice technicians led by him were already waiting outside the office.
The apprentice technicians are young men with a little bit of education who he personally selected from among the steelworkers of the Ma Niao Complex. They are currently being trained as shift leaders, and will of course take on more important jobs in the future.
However, a lot of good seedlings are lost in frequent accidents. Veteran technicians are well aware of the dangers of working in front of the furnace, and generally try to avoid doing dangerous work personally, and will do preventive work if they participate, but this time and space has just
The natives who came into contact with the monster of modern industry had no intuitive understanding at all. Many people did not live long enough to be recognized by Ji Wusheng and had already turned into elements in the smoke and steel.
"Let's go." Ji Wusheng checked everyone's work equipment and said simply. In front of the office building, he boarded the commuter train running inside the steel complex and headed for the blast furnace.
The Ma Niao Iron and Steel Complex has begun to take shape. Although in Ji Wusheng's opinion, this complex is really shabby. But according to the standards of this time and space, it is already at the sci-fi level. There are only rails on the ground, iron frames and pipes in the sky, and numerous chimneys.
It is enough to make the natives who enter the factory area for the first time be horrified and think that they have entered some "demon world".
Ji Wusheng got off the car in front of the "stop" of the No. 2 blast furnace - he wanted to inspect the new blast furnace that had been put into operation for less than a year.
The No. 2 blast furnace was tapping iron. Along with the sound of alarm bells, a furnace flame more than one meter long shot out from the tap hole, and the heat was overwhelming. The flames under the blast furnace were dazzling. The hot molten iron in the furnace was rolling and beating. It was glowing.
A scorching light; the molten iron is poured out, and chips fly everywhere. The boiling boiler is like a "mountain of flames", spitting out hot flames, and the molten iron in the furnace is like rolling magma, with iron flowers splashing around from time to time.
In the production workshop, workers kept stirring the red and hot molten iron, and their soaked clothes clung to their backs. Standing in front of the blast furnace, the huge mouth 5 meters away sprayed red flames, constantly suppressing the waves of heat.
Come. Along with the splashing of steel flowers from time to time, the surrounding air is also distorted. The outline of the blast furnace has long been swallowed up by the red hot flames. Even the steelmaking workers who are rising and falling next to them, waving stirring rods, seem to be shaking at any time.
Get sucked into that big mouth.
Such a grand scene would be thrilling even for a veteran, but it was a daily occurrence for Ji Wusheng. The volume of the blast furnace in front of him was less than 1/4 of the blast furnace he had worked in in the old time and space.
Naturalized migrant workers work in front of a blast furnace with temperatures above 1,600 degrees Celsius every day. The temperature in the workshop is as high as 55 degrees Celsius. They work in this environment for 12 hours a day, taking turns day and night. Half of the time is spent in front of the high-temperature furnace. To ensure safety
, they wear protective gear such as Lingao's self-produced safety goggles, safety helmets, large gloves, thick socks, etc. They must also wear thick canvas long-sleeved protective clothing, each of which has several layers of ordinary summer clothing.
The pieces were thick, and each one's face was stained black with smoke.
But the whole body's defense is just to resist the flying iron flowers. As long as there is a mistake, the sparks will burst out, and a piece of red iron will collapse and look like a bullet. If it hits a person, it will be fatal - with Lingao's medical treatment
Level, it is impossible to cure injuries caused by working in front of the furnace.
Ji Wusheng felt beads of sweat falling from his forehead. The average temperature in the blast furnace workshop throughout the year was more than 40 degrees Celsius, and it could reach more than 60 degrees Celsius in summer when it was hot.
The taphole was sealed again. The furnace director Zhao Youcai held a temperature measuring gun in both hands and quickly came to the furnace to test the temperature of the molten iron in the furnace. If the temperature was too high, he would add materials to the furnace; if the temperature was too low, he would
He had to ask the blower room to increase the air blowing. At this time, big beads of sweat flowed out from under his safety helmet, and the protective clothing on his body was completely soaked.
Zhao Youcai came from Guangdong - he was not a refugee, but he immigrated across the sea. He was originally working as a blacksmith in Shaoguan. Because the business was sluggish recently, he heard that Lingao needed a large number of blacksmiths, so he came to work.
After entering the steelmaking plant, I worked as a foreman at the No. 1 blast furnace.
He has worked as an ironworker in the earthen iron kilns in Shaoguan for more than ten years, and has accumulated rich experience; he can judge the approximate temperature by looking at the fire and smoke. Most old blacksmiths and ironworkers have accumulated such experience, but
There are neither standards nor specific numbers for this kind of experience accumulation. After arriving at Lingao, through systematic training and furnace practice, his experience has been systematically and theoretically sorted out - he is also a studious person, and he participated in the steel plant
He took a training class and became a key worker. His sensitivity to temperature soon came into Ji Wusheng's sight. After working as his "apprentice technician" for a period of time, Zhao Youcai became the director of the No. 2 blast furnace.
"Chief——" Zhao Youcai saw Ji Wusheng and hurried over to greet him.
Ji Wusheng shook his hand: "How is it?"
"This is the second iron casting for this class. Everything is normal. Today's conversion rate is very good, I think it can exceed 1." Zhao Youcai showed a proud smile on his face.
"Good job." Ji Wusheng nodded, "You hand over the work in hand to the foreman on duty first, and we go to the special blast furnace."
Zhao Youcai went to go through the handover procedures. Ji Wusheng looked around the blast furnace to see the production situation. The current production situation of the two blast furnaces and one open-hearth furnace was relatively stable. Although it was limited to the problem of the furnace material, the intervals between minor repairs, medium repairs and major repairs were somewhat short.
, but at least continuous production has been maintained. It has roughly met the current industrial demand for steel.
However, the shortage of special steel and the shortage of profiles are still the main problems before him. Although the amount of steel produced is considerable, the production capacity of the rolling mills that process profiles is far from meeting the current needs of the industry. Whether it is
Whatever enterprises use, they cannot directly use iron ingots and steel ingots.
After solving the problem of silicon steel, we must try to produce some equipment for the steel rolling mill and expand the production scale of the steel rolling mill. Ji Wusheng was thinking about it.
In front of the special blast furnace, workers participating in the trial work have gathered. After the oven work was completed, the workers were cleaning the ash and unburned coke ash in the furnace. Ji Wusheng watched the workers' operations and asked
Foreman on duty:
"How's the furnace going?"
"Everything is normal, no damage found."
Ji Wusheng walked to the silo, where the raw materials for this trial had been prepared: coke, quicklime, pig iron that had been processed into rods, and quartz sand that had been crushed evenly.
Ji Wusheng knew that in addition to coke, quicklime, quartz sand and pig iron had been tested by the Central Laboratory of Heavy Industry and prepared according to the optimal ratio. These pig irons were specially purchased from Guangdong and then processed through desulfurization and dephosphorization.
.
The pig iron produced by our factory is not used because Tiandu iron ore itself contains high manganese content, so the pig iron produced by Ma Niao's blast furnace also contains high manganese content.
To make ferrosilicon steel, the manganese content is required to be less than 0.35%. Excessive manganese content will affect the magnetism of silicon steel sheets. Not only that, silicon steel also requires as few impurities as possible, especially low carbon, low sulfur and low nitrogen.
Therefore, in the first step of preparing ferrosilicon, it is necessary to control the content of harmful elements. This will facilitate the improvement of yield in the next step of using a converter to make steel.
Ji Wusheng immediately ordered: "Start loading! Turn on the equipment!"
The workers began to fill the furnace with coke and at the same time began to blow hot air into the furnace. As the amount of coke filled increased and the duration of the blast increased, the bottom of the furnace began to glow red, and the flame in the furnace gradually turned from red to white, and finally turned red.
It turned into a strong white flame light. Ji Wusheng could feel the strong heat radiation even while standing on the observation platform. The workers began to add quicklime at a ratio of 3 to 4% while adding coke. They continued to add it until the installation was completed.
Two-thirds of the furnace is filled. (To be continued...)