Salzgitter Flachstahl GmbH make use of a gunning installation manufactured by VELCO GmbH for the refractory maintenance process of the snorkels at their new RH plant. Hereby, SZFG fulfil the increased demands on productivity, occupational health and safety and humane working conditions.
The maintenance of RH snorkels constitutes a necessity for the safe operation of a RH plant. These must be cleaned (deskulled) from slag in regular intervals and afterwards furnished with a protective layer inside and outside by using the gunning technique.
Two snorkel maintenance carriages are used for snorkel cleaning and each is provided with a snorkel deskulling device. The platform of these carriages can be used for manual gunning, too. The snorkel maintenance carriages move on rails and each one is dedicated to one RH plant.
A snorkel service carriage is installed between the snorkel maintenance carriages on the same rails. It can be used for both RH plants. The snorkel service carriage is equipped with a gunning manipulator with 2 lances (1x for inside gunning and 1x for outside gunning) and a gunning machine with two outlets, one each for inside resp. outside gunning.
The feeding of gunning material to the snorkel service carriage is carried out pneumatically by means of a pressure vessel machine and a pipe/hose system. The refilling of gunning machine with material is done automatically and dust-free. A recoupling of any hose is not required. In the first phase of construction the pressure vessel machine is filled by BIG BAGs, in a subsequent phase this can be modified to a silo filling.
The required compressed air, gunning water resp. electrical energy are fed to the snorkel service carriage via hoses resp. drums. A manual coupling is not required.
The operator can either use automatic programmes or may control the maintenance process via a radio remote control (manually).
