tundish preheaters and burner blocks

this following pic shows a tundish preheater after using 6 months from installation. 

a simple observation can easily reveal the minor damages on the 3rd and 6th burners, counting from left side. this is the sign of burner holes in tundish covers having a mismatch with those burners. if not those holes are perfectly matched, they may eventually expedite the damage rate of these burners as well as the refractory around it.

they may some time get damaged to such an extent that the broken pieces of burners may fall on the starter tubes of tundishes and collapse them. this would block the flow of steel during start of casting and that strand may be lost without sufficient, proper initial flow.

the following picture shows a tundish under heating in under this preheater; and the overflow spout is clearly visible at the center of the picture. a closer look shows the hole-for-burner in the cover of the tundish too.

this following pic shows a preheater from another caster where we have 5 strands. bottom right of the image shows the actuator-box (orange colored) the monoblock stopper can also be seen.

an advantage with this preheater is the extended burner blocks. changing these becomes much more easier than those of the previous preheater. (burner block change in the previous preheater takes somewhere around 4 to 6 hours depending on the ease with which old, rusted or weathered bolts of the old broken burners come off.)

since this image was taken before commissioning the stopper arms are not covered with refractory grade glasswool.