A steel mill or steelworks is an industrial plant for the manufacture of steel. It may be an integrated steel works carrying out all steps of steelmaking from smelting iron ore to rolled product but may also be a plant where steel semi-finished casting products are made from molten pig iron or from scrap.
Metal and fabric expansion joints are installed around the furnace and strip mills to ensure no flue gas and heat can leak. Maintaining temperature stability is key to the process and the environmental considerations of this high energy process.
Applications:
- Preparation and mixing of coals.
- Coke ovens and furnaces.
- Steel mills.
- Flue gas ductwork.
- Gas systems.
The metal expansion joint is a key element in the piping of these systems, having a design which is especially sensitive to the flexibility, combination of movements and number of life cycles in operation of these equipment.
To get a large axial movement, with low rigidities, these metallic compensators have been designed with multi-layer bellows made of high-strength refractory stainless steels, with leakage detection systems. In this case, an inner sleeve has not been required since there was a large lateral movement to be absorbed.
On the side walls of strip steel production plants, fabric expansion joints are often used with very high movement capability, whilst giving full gas tightness and high temperature insulation from the process.