Relining the BOF isn't fully automated. As in a conventional reline, the workers must manually reline the furnace bottom and mouth. The robot itself works the barrel and cone of the furnace. After the human workers remove the furnace bottom, a brick disintegrator clears the old lining. A conveyor from a brick-feeding station leads to the reline robot, which is set on a tower of up to seven blocks.
Workers place pallets of reline bricks in the feeding station.
The feeding station extracts bricks and places them on the conveyor. Each brick has a bar code specifying its proper location in the furnace. A scanning station over the conveyor reads the code and rejects bricks that would not fit at that point in the reline. An elevator picks bricks off the conveyor and brings them up a reline tower into the bowels of the vessel. The robot pushes each piece into place along the furnace wall.