Real time laser monitoring process could save steelmakers millions

The breakthrough innovation, which is being marketed by Swansea University spin-out Kubal-Wraith and developed in collaboration with Tata Steel UK, is claimed to offer a significant improvement over existing monitoring process, which require production to be halted while disposable probes are immersed into the molten metal to measure temperature and take samples.

Commenting on the new technology, its inventor, Tata Steel UK’s Dr Szymon Kubal, said: “We have been able to adapt and combine recent advances in refractory manufacturing and laser metrology to enable continuous monitoring with no break in production.”

He explained that the process allows a laser beam to be projected into a molten furnace through a refractory gas-swept channel (or tuyère) in the furnace wall. “Previous attempts of laser measurement techniques have been thwarted because metallic accretions block the channel through which the laser is probing, rendering the devices unreliable,” he said. “This innovation does do not suffer from such problems."