Large-scale Evaluation of Nickel Aluminide Rolls in a Heat-Treat Furnace at Bethelehem Steel's (Now ISG) Burns Harbor Plate Mill
At Bethlehem Steel Burns Harbor Plate Division (now ISG Burns Harbor Plate Inc.)'s annealing furnace, new nickel aluminide intermetallic alloy rolls provide greater high-temperature strength and wear resistance compared to the conventional H series cast austenitic alloys currently used in the industry. Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Bethlehem (ISG) partnered under a U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Industrial Technology's Emerging Technology Deployment Program to demonstrate and evaluate the nickel aluminide intermetallic alloy rolls as part of an updated energy efficient large commercial annealing furnace system. Many challenges were involved in this project, including developing welding procedures for joining nickel aluminide intermetallic alloys with H-series austenitic alloys, developing commercial cast roll manufacturing specifications, working with several commercial suppliers to produce a quantity of high quality, reproducible nickel aluminide rolls for a large steel industrial annealing furnace, installing and demonstrating the capability of the rolls in this furnace, performing processing trials to evaluate the benefits of new equipment and processes, and documenting the findings. Updated furnace equipment including twenty-five new automated furnace control dampers have been installed replacing older design, less effective units. These dampers, along with upgraded flame-safety control equipment and new AC motors and roll-speed control equipment, are providing improved furnace control and additional energy efficiency. Energy data shows up to a 34% energy reduction from baseline after the installation of upgraded furnace damper controls along with up to a 34% reduction in greenhouse gases, potential for an additional 3 to 6% energy reduction per campaign of light-up and shutdown, and a 46% energy reduction from baseline for limited trials of a combination of improved damper control and straight-through plate processing. The straight-through processing is now possible because of the nickel aluminide rolls which also provided plate product surface quality improvement that will allow the additional processing of surface critical material. Benefits also include associated large reductions in maintenance, reduction in spare rolls and associated component costs, and potential for greater through-put and productivity. Estimated project fuel cost reductions alone for processing 100,000 tons/yr through this furnace are almost $0.5 million/yr with the new dampers, and more than $600,000/yr with straight-through processing and new damper control, assuming natural gas prices of $6.00/MMBtu. The nickel aluminide rolls are competitively priced with conventional H series alloy rolls.
- Research Organization:
- Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- DE-AC05-00OR22725
- OSTI ID:
- 885753
- Report Number(s):
- ORNL/TM-2003/284; TRN: US200617%%177
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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