Standards Development

Scope

This Standard:

specifies the general safety requirements for secondary steelmaking machinery and equipment (SSME) as defined in 3.1 to treat liquid steel.

deals with all significant hazards, hazardous situations and events pertinent to SSME, when used as intended and under conditions foreseen by the manufacturer, but also includes foreseeable faults and malfunctions in case of misuse.

specifies the requirements to ensure the safety of persons which are to be met during the design, assembly, transport, commissioning, operation, maintenance and decommissioning of the equipment. assumes that SSME are operated and maintained by adequately trained and competent personnel. Manual intervention for setting, adjustment and maintenance is accepted as part of the normal use of the equipment.

This Standard applies to SSME involved in the treatment process of liquid steel under vacuum or atmospheric pressure and covers:

LF, Ladle furnace,

VD, Vacuum degassing,

VOD, Vacuum oxygen decarburization,

RH (OB), Ruhrstahl Heraeus (oxygen blowing),

process related interfaces/interactions (e.g., according to design, controls) to

o process media,

o primary and secondary gas cleaning plant,

o material handling systems,

o transfer cars for steel ladle, and

o crane and ladle.

NOTE1 Due to the variety of secondary metallurgical processes, there are other variants (e.g., VODC – vacuum oxygen decarburization converter) in addition to the main processes discussed in this document. Most countries require that applicable safety requirements, specific to this equipment be implemented.

This Standard does not cover safety requirements for the following equipment:

cranes;

Ladle transfer cars;

fork lift trucks or other transporting equipment;

ladles;

equipment for relining and preheating in the relining area;

burners according to ISO 13577-2 (the burner lances for RH vessels are covered by ISO 13577-2

except for maximum main burner ignition time, see 5.2.30.2)

cleaning and treatment of dust and fume exhaust systems.

process media (e.g. air separation, boiler house, steam generation system),

material handling systems.

Purpose

In Europe an equivalent standard already exists covering safety aspects for secondary metallurgy (EN 14677), whereby the standard needs to be revised. The covered machine types are not only produced in Europe but in the whole world and safety aspects are of great importance to protect the people working with these machines.

Hence an international standard covering safety aspects of secondary metallurgy shall be developed on the basis of the European standard.