History of blast furnace blowers.

The development of blowers is inextricably linked with the stages of the history of technology and blast furnace production. The amount of blast is one of the main parameters of cast iron production, determining the size and performance of the blast furnace. Consideration of the issues of changing the design and drive of blowers starts from the natural draft and wedged leather bellows. The use of a horse-drawn drive or a water co-scaffold made it possible to increase the amount of air supplied to the furnace. The important event in the development of blowers was the advent of a steam engine, which made it possible to ensure industrial steel production in the middle of the XIX century. A fundamental change in the design of blowers occurred during the transition from reciprocating machines to centrifugal machines ‒ turboblowers powered by a steam turbine drive. Various design solutions of blowers of the transition period of the beginning of the XX century are considered, on the example of the technical equipment of the blower station of the Donetsk Metallurgical Plant (the plant of the Novorossiysk Society). Modern blower machine designs and characteristics are shown. It is noted that the cessation of the increase in the volume of created blast furnaces is associated with the achievement of the capacity limit of blowers. It is noted that in a number of cases, on the basis of technical and economic calculations, the possibility of obtaining a higher level of energy efficiency of the process of supplying blast to a blast furnace is substantiated when gas-tubine installations operating on blast-furnace gas are used to drive a turboblower. Some increase in the efficiency of the blast furnace process can be obtained, by considering the operation of a complex of devices: a turbo blower, an air heater, an air piping system.