Recent advances in blast furnace ironmaking in Western Europe.

Prior to 1974, the evolution of the ironmaking sector in Western Europe was strongly marked, on one hand by the rapid growth of steel industry, and on the other hand by the replacement of lean local ores by iron-rich imports from overseas. The former evolution was abruptly stopped by the energy crisis and was followed by a period of contracting production and streamlining of the existing installations.The few new blast furnaces built replaced a larger number of small obsolete units, and the production was concentrated on the most performing furnaces. New ecological constraints put further pressure on the ironmaking sector. The necessity to reduce or completely suppress tuyere injection of oil also had an adverse effect on furnace productivity and on the smoothness of the operation.Today, all these difficulties have been overcome and the West European blast furnaces achieve excellent performances. The typical plant has two blast furnaces in the range of 8-11 m of hearth diameter, with modern equipment for controlling and monitoring the burden distribution at the top and computerized control rooms. The mean productivity is about 50 t/m2·24 h and the average total fuel rate lies below 500 kg/tHM. Coal injection has been a rapid expansion over the past five years, and end of 1991 the total installed coal injection capacity will exceed 10 Mio t of coal/annum. High injection rates above 170 kg/tHM have been reached on several blast furnaces, reducing the coke rate below 330 kg/tHM and, in at least one case, even below 300 kg/tHM. Trials presently in progress aim at coal injection rates above 300 kg/tHM.