Burden preparation
Burden
For the supply of the necessary 8 million tons of blast furnace materials used in the area of burden preparation, at our disposal are: a port located on the Rhine with an handling capacity of 10 million tons per year, an ore classifying plant, a warehouse, several kilometers of conveyor belts as well as three blending beds and sintering plant downstream with a capacity of 5 million tons per year.
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Habour
The dock length of our harbour facility amounts to 900 m, the surface of the harbour basin approximately 45,000 m2. For freight transport, 2 ore loading ramps and 2 port cranes are available. Through the materials entrance approximately 9 millions tons, essentially fine ore, lump ore, pellets and fluxes pass per annum.
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Approximately 1 million tons per year pass through the materials exit. This includes semi-finished materials and cinder products as well as tubes and finished products of the businesses based in the works area.
Sintering plant
In the sintering plant fine ores, concentrates and fluxes are heated up and bonded together with a fuel additive in order to improve mechanical firmness and ensure a close grain volume on one hand and a good passage of the material column in the blast furnace and also to improve the reducibility of the iron ores.
For sintering, a dampened, homogenized mixture of fine-grained material consisting of ore, coke and fluxes passes on a circulating grate and is ignited from above.
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Carbon contained in the mixture burns with the help of air sucked in by the grate and causes a bonding together of the ore grains. After screening the highly gas-permeable and reductionable sinter is suitable for direct burdening in the blast furnace.
Overview of the technical data of the HKM sintering plant.
Furnace logistics
After screening the finished sinter is transported over conveyor belts to the blast furnace. The performance of the sintering plant is co-ordinated with the sinter consumption of the blast furnaces, whereby the alignment of the two continuously working production units takes place during plan production deviations by using the intermediately placed warehouse.
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The pellets and lump ores for the blast furnaces delivered to HKM are transported directly to the blast furnace a large extent from the ship via a screening station for the removal of the powdered material created during transport. In the port warehouse a small safety stock is stored in order to cover delivery deviations.
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