The steelmaker currently is trying to get the new products, which are easier to manufacture, into automakers' plants. At the blast furnace, U.S. Steel researchers are continuing to work with burden distribution so that operators can increase the burden and the co-injection of alternative fuels at the blast furnace, say Fred Jauss, general manager of research, and Jack Zaranek, division manager of process technology and research, U.S. Steel. The steelmaker also recently developed a new model to monitor hearth life. The model uses data from 51 arrays of thermocouples in the blast furnace to predict the thickness of the hearth wall and to determine whether there are any gaps between the refractory bricks and the shell. U.S. Steel plans to install the model at all its blast furnaces.
Operators typically use dummy coils to fill gaps in the production schedule.
Bethlehem currently isn't directly involved with any research on alternative-ironmaking processes, Roberts and Chilton say. U.S. Steel researchers are participating in a new AISI project on rotary-hearth optimization. The steelmaker had worked on this itself before joining the project. Most rotary-hearth processes are limited in their productivity by the maximum thickness of the pellet layer, Jauss and Zaranek explain. This makes the capital cost per ton of capacity high.