Thermal bending in blast furnace copper staves

Abstract

Copper staves are used in blast furnaces to protect the steel shell from process heat loads. Staves have experienced premature failures such as cracks, water leakage, and abrasion related wear. Relationships between copper stave failure and deformation have been reported in literature. A detailed assessment methodology is presented to estimate the thermomechanical bending of copper staves. This approach incorporates temperature-dependent copper properties including creep and plasticity to more accurately capture stave deformation under transient and cyclic thermal loading conditions. The resulting deformations are compared with commonly reported stave failures. Improvements to stave design can be assessed using the presented methodology.