Charging the furnace

I was lucky enough to get to tour the Nucor steel plant in Tuscaloosa, AL a couple of years back for one of our summer ASM Teachers Camps. At that plant they use an electric arc furnace to melt their scrap iron which they then mix to the desired composition of steel. I remember seeing them charge the furnace with recycled scrap iron and thinking it was just about the scariest, brightest, most awesome thing I had ever seen.

I don't know where Christopher Birkbeck - the poster of the above video - was touring when he filmed this video, but I imagine it's a pretty similar set-up to what I saw in Tuscaloosa.

My understanding of what's happening is that the scrap iron has some organic compounds on it - oil, paint, um...paint and oil - which immediately vaporizes and burns off on contact with the already molten iron still in the furnace. This is further fed by the release of oxygen from any rust that is on the scrap iron.

The flare really is outstanding to watch.

Honestly, the best tours we take in the summer are almost always the dirtiest tours.

Thankfully, the two charges we got to see on our tour didn't look anything like this one...



Ours looked a lot more like this...



Really, I could watch these videos all day long...