Products
Ladle furnace roof — a reliable, water-cooled LF solution for steel refining.
DNL Engineering supplies the water-cooled steel roof structure for the ladle furnace (LF), with custom design and manufacturing services tailored to each client's requirements.
It doesn't melt steel, it refines it. As a secondary metallurgy unit it performs four jobs: deoxidation and alloying of the steel, temperature and composition homogenization, desulfurization, and improved cleanliness through flotation of inclusions. An arc is struck with graphite electrodes, and the liquid steel in the ladle is processed inside the ladle itself.
About 3–5°C per minute. Electrical power is far more moderate than in an arc furnace; the goal is not melting but holding temperature and fine-tuning the casting temperature. The submerged-arc technique, with the arc buried under the slag, reduces radiative loss from the arc and raises heating efficiency.
It closes off the top of the ladle, allows the electrodes to pass through, and collects the fume that forms. As described in US Patent 8,562,713, both the vertical and horizontal sections of the roof are water-cooled; a circular flange on its lower part mates with the ladle's upper flange, and the dense fume that forms in the space between ladle and roof is extracted through this section. DNL Mühendislik manufactures this water-cooled steel roof structure.
In the industry it's said: "make the slag, and the steel makes itself." The slag layer protects the refractory from arc damage, concentrates heat and transfers it to the liquid steel, retains inclusions and metal oxides, and provides the medium for desulfurization. The reduction in arc radiation, and the resulting rise in melting rate and electrical efficiency, are a direct consequence of this layer.
