Swedish steel producer Ovako has awarded The Systems Group the contract to modernise and increase safety on their electric arc furnace (EAF) roof.

The roof, to be equipped with Systems Group’s Systems Spray-Cooled technology, will replace the pressurised tubular roof on the EAF at Ovako’s bar, billet, tube, and rings facility in Hofors, Sweden. It will be the first Spray-Cooled roof in the Nordic region, according to The Systems Group.

“After first being exposed to Spray-Cooled technology at the European Electric Steelmaking Conference in Italy, Ovako weighed the new technology against their current pressurised tubular roofs. The main concerns were implementing the technology with their environment (piping),” the company said in a statement.

Under the contract, the new roof will be engineered to work with their current furnace setup, as well as `future-proofed’ to integrate with planned furnace upgrades. To alleviate concerns about potential piping issues, the new roof will be engineered using state-of-the-art 3D laser scans of the current furnace and surrounding mill, the company said.

The 3D laser scan will aid in the design, especially since the available drawings are 25 years old and have discrepancies. It will also allow piping to be designed accurately for easy fitment and should greatly reduce or eliminate unforeseen issues in the process, it added.

“Ovako has been highly enthusiastic about the technology and saw clear advantages both for maintenance and for safety. Because Spray-Cooled equipment operates at atmospheric pressure, the cooling water is not pumped across the area to be cooled. Therefore, the potential for high pressure, high volume water leaks is eliminated,” it said.

The Hofors steelmaking operation, based around ingot casting, has an annual capacity of about 500,000 tonnes of ingots. The tube rolling capacity is about 120,000 tonnes annually and the ring rolling capacity about 45,000 tonnes a year.

The unconventional cantilever-lift roof will be fabricated in Germany and commissioning is scheduled in January of 2018.