Development of Metallic Fibre-Reinforced MgO-C Brick and its Application at the SAIL Rourkela Steel Plant

Abstract

Magnesia carbon (MgO-C) bricks are widely used in steel ladles and converters in the iron and steel industry. Bricks of different composition are used depending on the chemical, mechanical and thermal conditions encountered by the converter/ladle. Brick varieties have different erosion behaviour. The critical areas in these iron and steel processing devices are the charge pad area of converters and the impact area of steel ladles, where hot liquid metal or high temperature liquid steel directly strike from a height, causing thermo-mechanical abrasion. A special composition of MgO-C bricks reinforced with stainless steel fibres was developed at the Research and Development Centre for Iron and Steel (RDCIS) and samples were characterised at laboratory scale. The added fibre design was optimised for hot strength properties. Bricks were manufactured at Lime Dolomite Brick Plant (LDBP), a sister plant of Rourkela Steel Plant (RSP), based on laboratory test results. The paper describes the details of brick composition, results of lab testing and the performance of bricks in plant-scale trials at RSP.