Large electric arc furnaces

Summary

There is considerably more that could be said about the furnace circuit. It has been the intention of this paper to touch on the aspects most vital at this present stage of development of large arc furnace circuits.

In a few words, the factors of most importance are:

• 1) Reactance, which is necessary but also harmful in large quantities. For a short low-voltage arc, which melts more steel and less refractory, strive for minimum reactance. But, by all means, know how much reactance there is—primary as well as secondary. A longer arc may be preferable to one that won’t melt the tonnage calculated into the total steel operation.

• 2) Megawatt rating is more important that megavolt amps, in rating the melting power of a large furnace.

• 3) Specify a sensible relationship between megawatts and transformer megavolt amps.