DIRECT SMELTING PLANT AND PROCESS

摘要

A process and apparatus for maintaining stoves (27) and a hot blast main (29) that connects the stoves to a hot air injection lance or lances of a direct smelting vessel in a hot state during the course of a shut-down of the vessel is disclosed. The process maintains the temperatures of the stoves and the hot blast main within temperature ranges that minimise damage to the stoves and the hot blast main. The apparatus includes a vent in the hot blast main that allows streams of hot air generated in the stoves to be discharged from the hot blast main during the course of the process.