Preface
The third edition of “Modern Blast Furnace Ironmaking” was prepared by an international staff of experts in blast furnace ironmaking. We gratefully acknowledge the contributions of Mr. Cor van der Vliet and Mr. Hisko Toxopeus, who co-authored the first two editions of the book and agreed to hand over future editions of the book to a next generation. Hisko Toxopeus asked to see the revised edition, but he passed away before publication.
The objective of the book is to share our insights that optimization of the blast furnace is not only based on “best practice transfer”, but also requires conceptual understanding of why a measure works in some cases and not in other cases. In other words, operational improvement is not only based on know-how, but also on know-why.
Compared to the second edition we have included gas injection as well as coal-gas co-injection, expert systems, more elaborate descriptions of alkali cycles, the deadman and operational challenges.
We are indebted to many colleagues we have worked with. We are grateful to Jennifer Wise-Alexander and Tim Vander, who find the major part of their contributions to the second edition in chapters 10 and 4 respectively. Jim Plooij shared with us his insights and benchmarking data. Edo Engel did the editing and developed the colorful and insight-giving illustrations.
We learn by sharing our knowledge. We wish the same to our readers.
Maarten Geerdes, Rénard Chaigneau, Ivan Kurunov,
Oscar Lingiardi and John Ricketts
February 2015
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