STUDY ON YIELD OF HOT BRIQUETTED IRON CHARGE INSIDE ELECTRIC ARC FURNACE

The EAF steel production process currently provides very stringent limits on emissions but the environmental impact appears to be minor, if compared to blast furnace cycle. The electric arc furnace operates as a batch process. The scrap yard operators classify and prepare buckets of scrap according to the chemical and production needs of the Electric Arc Furnace. The study about the preparation of the charge bucket is becoming an important operation, in order to ensure proper melt chemistry and good melting conditions. Actually, most of charging operations are based on buckets, where different kind of scrap is charged inside. The addition of high quantity of shredded scrap can increase the concentration of unwanted alloy elements inside the metal bath. The use of HBI can be considered a good operational practice both for increasing the melt yield and for decreasing the high quality scrap fraction used in the EAF cycle. This implies a decrease of the environmental impact, without affecting the production and it avoids the high concentration of undesired elements (e.g. Sulphur, Copper, Tin), due to the charge of low quality scrap.