hebig.org/blog

2009May20
« PreviousCurrent in PhotosNext » « Previous EntryHomeNext Entry »

Ougrée, the last tapping

Shutting down a blast furnace in such a fashion that it can be restarted at a later point involves removing the liquid and solidified materials in the hearth of the furnace below the tap hole. This part of the furnace is called Sau (=sow) in German, le loup (=wolf) in French or salamander in English. Its liquid part gets tapped using a drill and an oxygen lance. In Ougrée, this was done yesterday. Furnaceman Pierre Machiroux took this video:



And this video of Pierre shows how cooling the furnace shell looked like:



Thanks, Pierre!

Entry first published 2009-05-27 03:22, last edited 2009-08-24 11:24
Share this entry via e-mail - on Twitter