LOI heat-treatment furnace bed repair at Yartsevo State unitary enterprise Casting and Rolling Plant (SUP “LPZ”): REFRACTORY ENGINEERING, SUPPLY AND INSTALLATION!

SUMMARY. On December 22, 2017, Wellons.RU LLC successfully completed the project for the complete replacement of the LOI heat-treatment furnace bed refractory at the Yartsevo SUP "LPZ”, under the EPC contract terms (engineering, refractory materials selection and supply, refractory dismantling and installation). The key points described in this article allowed to finish this project after 21 days from the work start (including the furnace firing, its ramping to the operating temperature).

 

ENGINEERING.  

Due to the fact that the Casting and Rolling Plant is a state unitary enterprise, this plant shall comply with the Federal law No 44-FZ, which complicates the contracting due to the terms of payment, guarantees, bid security etc. In this regard, a number of companies refused to participate in the tender, and the implementation of the project to replace the refractory of heat-treatment furnace bed walking beams was compromised.  

Wellons.RU LLC specialists operatively prepared different refractory options for the heat-treatment furnace beams. Detailed drawings of the options were presented at a joint technical meeting with the

plant specialists to discuss and make a final decision on the design of the LOI heat-treatment furnace bed walking beams refractory. Basing on the results of the discussion, we selected multilayer combined refractory with working and insulating refractory concrete layers. 

The mutual desire to implement the project sped the work considerably:  from the contract conclusion no more than a month has passed before the work was started (including selection of refractory materials, their production, delivery to the plant site, and auxiliary materials also – anchors, insulation materials, formwork, etc.)!

 

REFRACTORY MATERIALS SUPPLY.

Close cooperation with the specialists of the plant of JSC Borovicheskiy combinat ogneuporov (Borovichi Refractory Plant, AO "BKO"), as well as our experience in the refractory materials use in various industries, helped to select the necessary refractories for the construction of the working and insulating layers for the beams of heat-treatment furnace. This plant's products were selected due to the "cooperation agreement" of our companies, as well as to confirmed high quality of AO "BKO" products used for our projects. 

For the implementation of our projects we use this plant's products with confidence. 

 

Three types of concrete were used for the project of heat-treatment furnace bed refractory replacement: 

• working layer concrete – concrete with Al2O3>82%;

• working layer concrete (side zones) – refractory concrete with Al2O3>55%;

• – thermal insulation concrete with operating temperature up to 1100°C.

 

It should be noted that AO "BKO" produced the necessary volume and assortment of refractory concretes for this project in the shortest possible time. The execution of our application took no more than three weeks from the order placement. 

 

INSTALLATION.

One of the main conditions of the scope of work, in addition to the high quality of works and used refractory materials, was the refractory works strict deadline. The total scope of work, including refractory 

dismantling, new refractory installing, as well as its drying and the furnace temperature ramping (1170°C), took 21 days.

To achieve this goal, the Wellons.Ru LLC specialists took the following steps:

  • work management plan was developed with detailed description of the necessary measures for labor protection and industrial safety;
  • the personnel involved in repair work was instructed in detail;
  • detailed drawings of refractory, anchoring, etc. were prepared;
  • quality data sheets of applied materials were delivered;
  • detailed instructions for the preparation of concrete were provided;
  • formwork drawings were developed and its parts manufactured. complete set of finished formwork parts was delivered at the site for the assembly of this formwork according to detailed drawings. Moreover, to facilitate further assembly the test assembly of specimens was performed as an example.
  • necessary set of tools was delivered at the site before the work start;
  • necessary volume of refractory products was delivered at the site before the work start;
  • thermal calculation was performed to confirm the correctness of the materials used and refractory design;
  • ​refractory installation process was controlled at all stages of works.

Pre-arranged preparatory measures for the formwork manufacture, the availability of all necessary material and human resources, allowed Wellons to dismantle 100 tonnes of old concrete and install ~ 85 tonnes of new refractory concrete on the furnace bed with walking beams within 16 days. In addition, the use of the latest methods and materials allowed us to reduce the overall weight of the bed by ~ 15 tonnes, which will facilitate operation of the drive mechanisms of the entire unit.

We express our gratitude to AO "BKO" specialists who took an active part in this project: Mikhail Tsarev, Anatoly Barulin, Oleg Biller. You can see this project implementation details at the web-page: Repairs in the batch-heating furnace.