Análise do custo do ciclo de vida de válvulas de descarga de pó de um alto forno

Abstract

With a new production scenario, it´s necessary to predict the increase of maintenance costs to support manager decisions. For this, it´s necessary to know the life cycle cost of the equipments. The main problem to be studied is the limitation of the operating time of the four dust discharge valves. The frequency of replacement of the valve seal components is very high and the costs involved are considerable. This equipment is currently a weak point when it comes to increased annual iron production. If it´s necessary to extend the blast furnace's operating time by a few more months before the next scheduled shutdown, the reliability of this equipment is reduced and possibly it will fail stopped the production of iron. The methodological procedures applied in this study are of an applied technological research nature, with a descriptive and exploratory objective and a procedure classified as research and action. The LCC methodology was used to choose the most cost-effective approach from a series of alternatives so that the lowest long-term cost of ownership is achieved. It can be noticed that of several alternatives of technologies replacing the current valve, one of them presented considerably lower cost during the analyzed period.