15, September builders and technologists have to execute all main piece of work connected with start of bulk coal plant. This challenge was set by General Director “Zaporizhstal” JSC Rostislav Shurma on recent conference concerning final completion.
PCI installation in blast furnaces began to operate more than a year ago. The whole time, in the absence of the bulk plant, railcars with coal arrive and detrain in the blast furnace department hopper, which leads to significant complexities in the blast furnaceman's work. The coal bulk plant will solve this problem. BCP is a conveyor system that intakes and transports coal of different brands from the railcar freight terminal to averaging and shipping hoppers for shipping to the blast furnace department on the PCI installation.
The total length of the bulk plant conveyor is about 7 kilometers. The longest section is “strained” up to 440 kilometers—almost through the whole storage area. The maximum coal feed rate by the car dumper is 1200 tons per hour or 100 railcars per day. All transportation freight will be managed by belt conveyors, with 9 of them and 6 in the car dumper complex. All of them are already arranged and waiting for testing.
The electric power supply of the warehouse will be provided by 2 powerful electrical substations, which are also already arranged. Additionally, the mechanisms designed for laying-up, averaging, and coal overload are in place. The most time-consuming aspect of the entire building process became the car dumper, which was installed on a vigorous fundament footstall. It will set the pace for the entire coal preparation technology in order for the coal in the blast furnace department to become full-energy pulverized coal fuel, replacing expensive natural gas during iron smelting.
The total investment volume for the realization of this project is about 5 billion UAH. The General Director of “Zaporizhstal” JSC mentioned prior projects on the technical re-equipping of the plant at this stage: the building of the coal bulk plant, sinter machine No.1, and the overhaul of blast furnace No.4.