The swing to all-basic furnaces

GT V01 1960 011-016

Although all-basic furnaces  were tried in Great Britain  even before the war, it  is only in the last few years they have proved economical. The swing having started is proving violent, some five  all-basic furnaces in 1956 having risen to fifty by the beginning of 1960. Attempts to justify such furnaces  purely on the basis of longer life have proved futile. They can only become  economical  with faster driving-involving greater fuel input  rates  with or without oxygen for  combustion and lancing. Increased outputs of 10-30% are now being achieved with roof lives two or three times that of silica in spite of  substantially  higher operating  temperatures. 

J. H. Chesters