An electric arc furnace's refractory lining takes the full brunt of every heat: scrap impact, arc flare, and slag chemistry all working to wear it thin. One steel plant kept over-relying on fixed campaign lengths, pulling furnaces for reline whether the lining had ten heats of life left or a hundred. Moving to predictive, hot-spot-based refractory monitoring in a CMMS changed when a reline actually happened. Sign up to see how predictive refractory tracking would look on your own furnace fleet.
Refractory relines were scheduled on a fixed heat count for every furnace, regardless of actual wear. A furnace running high-carbon scrap and aggressive slag chemistry lost lining thickness far faster than a furnace on cleaner charges, but both got pulled for reline on the same calendar, wasting good lining life on one and risking breakout on the other.
What Now Gets Monitored On Every Furnace
Oxmaint tracks hot spot readings, heat-by-heat wear, and inspection findings for every furnace in one place. Sign up for a free trial to see it against your own furnace fleet, or book a demo to walk through your refractory planning process.
Refractory Management Before And After
Furnaces on clean charge mixes were relined weeks later than the old fixed schedule allowed, while furnaces on aggressive charges were flagged early enough to plan a reline instead of risking a breakout. Tying hot spot data and heat-by-heat wear logs to a CMMS turned refractory management from a calendar guess into a planned maintenance decision.
Why Fixed Reline Schedules Fall Short
Two furnaces running the same fixed reline schedule can wear at very different rates depending on scrap quality, slag basicity, and how long each heat runs. A calendar-based approach either pulls a furnace too early, wasting lining life and production time, or too late, risking a breakout that damages the shell itself. Predictive tracking closes that gap by basing the reline decision on what the refractory is actually experiencing, heat by heat.
Frequently Asked Questions
Stop Guessing When Your Furnace Needs A Reline
Oxmaint brings hot spot data, heat-by-heat wear logs, and inspection findings into one CMMS so every furnace gets relined on actual condition, not a fixed calendar. Sign up for a free trial to see it against your own furnace fleet, or book a demo to walk through your refractory planning process.
