Innovative job leads substantial savings in RSP

The Rourkela Steel Plant (RSP) today said its Structural and Fabrication Shop collective has developed a modified Top Cone for the LD Converter of Steel Melting Shop-II for the first time using in-house resources.

The Top Cone of the LD Converter - 1 of Steel Melting Shop II weighing about 45 tonnes was damaged and needed replacement. As its cone tip and lip ring were welded and fabricated from casting segments, the repair/replacement involved a lot of machining, fitting and welding operations, RSP said in a statement.

The Structural and Fabrication Shop collective decided to modify the design of the 7.8 metre dia and 3.0 metre high LD Cone from Casting and Welding Design to Bolting Design. The redesigned LD cone was fabricated from 15crMo3 grade plates and slabs, specially rolled in New Plate Mill of RSP, it said.

This modification has now enabled in easy replacement of the damaged lip ring with less effort and down time. The profile cutting of the plate segments, accurate bending of the 70mm thick plates to conical shape, machining and drilling of 150 mm thick lip ring, assembling of the heavy segments and massive welding jobs with minimum distortion were the main challenge faced during the fabrication job. Machining and drilling assistance was taken from Mechanical Shop.

This endeavour has helped in reducing the casting, machining and welding cost and therefore saving of the cash outflow to the tune of Rs 60 lakh. The job has also improved the morale of the collective who are ready to take up more challenging jobs in future, the release said.