"The things of the world are often accomplished through diligence and frugality rather than extravagance." In recent years, cost reduction and efficiency increase have become the core proposition of enterprise survival and development. Hebei Xinda Iron and Steel Group Co., Ltd. steelmaking plant actively responded to the group's call to reduce costs and increase efficiency, and deeply tapped the potential of production links. Among them, the improvement of the topic of "reducing the temperature difference of the tuyere jacket water" in the blast furnace has achieved outstanding results, which has injected strong impetus into the cost reduction and efficiency increase of enterprises.

Faced with the "tuyere small set of water temperature difference is high", which has long plagued the pain point of blast furnace production, the ironmaking plant acted quickly and set up a team to reduce costs and increase efficiency. The team members cover various key positions in the ironmaking plant, led by Jin Jianhui, blast furnace director, furnace master, hydraulic technician and a number of foreman.

Under the professional guidance of the factory leader Peng Dingchang, the research team carefully formulated the activity plan. According to the PDCA cycle mode, the whole process was divided into several stages, such as goal setting, status investigation, cause analysis, key cause confirmation, formulation of measures, implementation of measures, effect inspection, consolidation of measures and summary plan, so as to clarify the task and personnel division of each stage to ensure the orderly progress of activities.

Cause of investigation

In the status investigation stage, the team found through the analysis of the data of the past three months that the average temperature difference of the tuyair jacket of the blast furnace was as high as 8.2℃. This problem not only leads to increased scaling of the water pipe, which shortens the life of the jacket by 30%, but also causes abnormal furnace temperature, resulting in slag skin falling off, and the frequency of wind downtime increases by 15%, which has an impact on production. Based on this, the team set a goal of reducing the average water temperature difference of the tuyere jacket to 6.2 ° C.

In order to find out the root cause of the high water temperature difference, the team conducted a comprehensive analysis from many aspects such as human, machine, material, method and environment, and sorted out many suspicious factors such as unreasonable cloth Angle, too long iron discharge interval, large fluctuation of sinter composition, and poor gas permeability of the furnace cylinder. Subsequently, after a series of rigorous confirmation work such as site investigation, data viewing and measurement, it was finally determined that the small diameter of the tuyere tube and the large temperature fluctuation of the hot metal furnace were the key factors leading to the high temperature difference of water.

Measure implementation

In view of the problem that the tuyere small casing diameter is too small, the research team decided to take advantage of the maintenance and wind break opportunity to replace the original 40mm inner diameter of the water pipe with 50mm inner diameter of the water pipe, and simultaneously upgrade the water pipe valve and flange. This can not only increase the water area, strengthen the heat transfer effect, but also ensure that the water pressure and water velocity are not affected.

In order to control the temperature fluctuation of hot metal furnace, the branch plant and workshop have established a strict assessment mechanism, and carry out internal ranking for the foreman. By strengthening the supervision of the foreman's operation, the temperature fluctuation of hot metal furnace is effectively reduced, the silicon deviation of hot metal is reduced, and the heat system in the furnace is stabilized.

Improve results

After a series of efforts, the improvement work has achieved remarkable results. At present, the average temperature difference of the 13 tuyere jackets that have been transformed has dropped to 5.5℃, a decrease of 33%, far exceeding the expected target, and the subsequent transformation is still in progress.

In terms of benefits, the results are equally outstanding. Tuyere sleeve life extended by 40%, annual maintenance cost reduced by 20%; The frequency of shutdowns is reduced by 50%, and the operation rate of blast furnace is increased by 8%. After the improvement in the first quarter of 2025, the wind was only shut down 3 times, saving 7 tuyere sets, and it is estimated that the quarterly effect reached 276,000 yuan.

The improvement of this project has not only achieved remarkable results in cost reduction and efficiency increase, but also accumulated valuable experience for subsequent work. In the future, the blast furnace team of the ironmaking plant will continue to take "zero hidden dangers, zero fluctuations, and zero waste" as the goal, continue to deepen technological innovation, and continue to contribute to the company's cost reduction and efficiency.

Experience the former sage country and home, become by thrift by luxury. The thousand-year-old motto still shines with wisdom. On the journey of reducing cost and increasing efficiency, Xinda people will "save is to create benefits" concept engraved in the heart, the future must be more careful to do the "iron abacus", when the innovation of the "vanguard", from optimizing the process to revitalizing idle assets, from digital enabling to circular economy exploration, so that each position has become the hub of value creation. In the competitive market pattern of thousands of ships, through the accumulation of unreplicable cost competitiveness, in the channel of high-quality development through the waves, with hard work interpretation of "the first" the true meaning of The Times!