Bokaro Steel Plant: Overview

By Siddhant Harkerni Trainee: BSL From Mewar University, Chittaurgarh Rajasthan

Introduction
The fourth integrated steel plant in the Public Sector conceived in 1959. Bokaro Steel Plant actually started taking shape in 1965 in collaboration with the Soviet Union. Bokaro Steel Plant was originally incorporated as a limited company on 29th January 1964 The construction work started on 6th April 1968 The Plant is hailed as the countrys first

BASIC INFORMATION
Location : Southern bank of Damodar River; approx. 50 km from Dhanbad and 140 km each from Ranchi and Jamshedpur Latitude : 230 39' Longitude : 860 09' Altitude : 210m (average) varying from 195 to 224m Climate : Extreme Annual Rainfall : Average 157cm; Maximum 195cm Temperature : Max 480 Celsius Min. 20 Celsius Wind direction : South-West to North-East Type of Soil : Loamy up to 1m to 2m, sandy soil below that Total land area : 33,045.35 acres Plant, Slag-dump, Cooling Ponds, Ancillaries, Marshalling Yard: 17,208.01 acres Township (including Airstrip) : 10,114.53 acres Garga Reservoir : 3,886.87 acres Railways : 1,835.94 acres

Parts of Bokaro Steel Plant

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. RAW MATERIAL HANDLING PLANT COKE OVENS SINTER PLANT BLAST FURNACE STEEL MAKING ROLLING MILLS

RAW MATERIAL HANDLING PLANT

Basic functions: Receive different raw materials and their handling Blending of raw material Keep buffer stock and supply raw materials to different units
Basic facilities: 4 Rotary Wagon Tipplers - 20 Wagons/Hr each 7 Twin boom Stackers - 1200 T/Hr each 5 Barrel Type Reclaimers - 1000 T/Hr each 1 Bucket Wheel Type Reclaimer - 500 T/Hr 2 Transfer Cars, 10 Shuttle Conveyors, 11 Cranes, 8 Telphers

The Raw Materials and Material Handling Plant of Bokaro is responsible for receipt, blending, storage, screening and supply of raw materials to Blast Furnaces, Sinter Plant and Lime Dolomite Shop as per their requirements. The shop also maintains a buffer stock of raw materials to take care of any interruption in supplies. Raw materials are handled by four wagon tipplers, stackers and reclaimers, and

The Coke Oven Complex at Bokaro supplies high quality coke to the Blast Furnaces. The process of coke making consists of the destructive distillation of coal in the absence of air. The coal is heated in a closed chamber there by driving out the volatile components present in coal and leave behind the residue called coke. This phenomenon is called as the carbonization of coal can be carried out at different temperature depending upon the type of coke we need. Carbonization temperature is 1200-1300C which is the optimum temperature to get coke of uniform size for the given coal inputs at BSL, there are 8 Batteries of 69 Ovens each (including one standby battery) with 4.7 m height and useful coke chamber volume of 27.3M3.

COKE OVENS

SINTER PLANT
Sintering is the process where incipient fusion takes place by combustion of Coke within moving bed of loosely packed fines of mainly Iron Ore, Coke & Flux so as to glomerate into a compact porous mass called SINTER. Sintering plant at Bokaro is unique in many respects. It has a very high sintering area per machine. It has 3 identical sinter machines in the same building with 3 separate interchangeable conveyors tracks available to feed them. Moreover there is a provision of storing 5000 tonnes of sinter at plant itself apart from storage of 5000 tonnes of sinter in Blast Furnace Bunkers.

The set up of Sintering plant at Bokaro comprises of three main sections:a) Raw material section b) Stock bins & Proportioning section c) Sinter machine building section

BLAST FURNACE
The aim of Blast furnace is to produce pig iron from ore and sinter, i.e. iron bearing materials. The products of the furnace are the pig iron (hot metal) slag and blast furnace gas.
In Bokaro there are five blast furnace of 2640T/day capacity each having a working volume of 2000M3. 5 Furnaces of 2000 cubic meter useful volume. All furnaces have Bell-less Top charging System for continuous charging & better distribution of charge. Coal Dust Injection in Furnace No. 4 and 5 and CHSGP in Furnace # 4 & 5. The Capacity of B F 4.585 MT of Hot Metal per annum.

Steel Melting Shop-II

There are two Converters in the Shop each of 300 hundred Ton Capacity. SMS II differs with SMS-I mainly because of blowing process and gas recovery system. Unlike SMS-I, SMS-II have got suppressed combustion system, where atmospheric air is not allowed to enter in the hood area and the combustion of converter gas is suppressed. Capacity of SMS-II is 2.25 MT of liquid Steel. At present, mainly Killed steels are produced in the shop.

Continuous Casting Shop

The Continuous Casting Shop, the fastest in the country, is equipped with advanced Level-3 automation and control systems. The shop has a Ladle Furnace and a Ladle Rinsing Station for secondary refining of steel. The shop has two fully automated Double-strand Slab Casting Machines. These machines are equipped with Straight Moulds (unique in India) and Continuous Straightening facilities to produce high quality slabs also Automatic Mould Level Control (unique in India) for better surface quality. CCS produces mild steel. It also produces low alloy steels.

Slabbing Mill
Slabbing mill transforms ingots into slab by rolling. The ingots of various sizes and weights are received from SMS I and after being rolled into slabs, they are sent to our internal customer HSM. The capacity of the mill is 4 MT and is of universal type, capable of rolling ingots up to 38 tons. The rolling rate varies from 600 to 800 T/Hrs depending upon the size of the ingots and the thickness of the slab to be rolled. The mill was commissioned on 30th December 1974. We have 12 groups of Soaking pits with each group having 4 pits : Total 48 pits wherein ingots are heated to a temperature above 1300C. SECTIONS Slabbing mill complex has been divided into four main sections. They are : a) Ingot Storage Yard b) Soaking Pit c) Mill Proper d) Slab Storage Yard

Hot Strip Mill

The Hot Strip Mill at Bokaro Steel Plant is a continuous 2,000 mm wide strip mill. It is referred to as a 2,000 mm mill because the barrel length of the rolls used in this mill is 2,000 mm. This mill is designed to roll thin and wide strips for use in various industries such as wagon building, tube and pipe industry, drum manufacturing, furniture manufacturing and lastly, for use in the Cold Rolling Mill. The fully automatic Hot Strip Mill of Bokaro Steel has a wide range of products. This is the only continuous Hot Strip Mill in India.

Cold Rolling Mill

The Cold Rolling Mill at Bokaro produces high quality sheet gauge material, Tin Mill Black Plate and Galvanized Products. Cold rolling gives thinner gauge strip of very smooth and dense finish with better mechanical properties that are used for various purposes. The CRM complex comprises two Pickling Lines, two Tandem Mills, an Electrolytic Cleaning Line, a Continuous Cleaning and Annealing Line, Bell Annealing Furnaces, two Skin Pass Mills, a Double Cold Reduction Mill (DCR), Shearing Lines, Slitting Lines and a packaging and despatch section.

Auxiliaries
There are a no of auxiliaries department that are an integral part of BSL that include Galvanizing Shops, Repair Shops, Distribution Networks, Labs etc which ensure that apart from the departments functioning well their maintenance is also proper and any problem that occurs can be handled without fault.

Future of Bokaro Steel Plant

The future looks promising for the industry as BSL is aiming to increase production of steel from 4.3 to 7 Mt tones within a span of 2 years. With my own experiences and with all the modernization going on its true that the target will be surpassed much before that. Also the Plant is a place full of job opportunities for us aspiring engineers to come here and leave a mark here, to work hard and learn.

THE END.