Nucor Steel Seattle Inc has officially signed off a water detection system (WDS) supplied by Tenova.
The system was approved based on controlled testing and successful detection of actual electric arc furnace water leaks, says Tenova.
According to Tenova, the results confirmed that the WDS met the plant’s requirements to detect and alert plant operators when higher than normal water conditions were present in the EAF. Furthermore, the WDS has also demonstrated minimal false alarms even in Seattle’s highly variable seasonal weather conditions.
Tenova claims that its the NextGen and i EAF project, commissioned in April 2016, surpassed Nucor Steel Seattle Inc’s expectation for ‘quantifiable and sustainable improvements in monthly process consumptions and operating costs’. Average monthly furnace consumptions were significantly decreased in the following areas: 5% electrical, 1.5% oxygen, 11.5% natural gas, 7.5% injected carbon and 32% charge carbon.
Complete system performance has more than doubled from the original estimated savings target determined at the start of the project with total electrical and chemical energy costs per ton of steel reduced by over 6%.