Development of chamber wall observation system at coke oven

The major factor determining the life of coke ovens is the degree of damage to the coking chamber wall. Repairs can be made by flame gunning if the damage is relatively light, but repair costs increase dramatically as damage becomes more serious. Depending on the case, it may be impossible to restore the oven to its original conditions. It is therefore necessary to inspect damage conditions periodically and carry out repairs systematically. In addition, obtaining a quantitative grasp of coke oven deterioration and estimating the operational burden with oven conditions also have a bearing on the service life of coke ovens. Therefore, for obtaining coke oven life of 30-35 years, it will be still more important that technique of obtaining a quantitative grasp of coke oven deterioration. Visual inspection by operators is not completely effective as a means of early discovery and diagnosis of damaged parts of the oven wall. This report describes the development of a device which solves this problem by making it possible to observe the entire coke oven wall using a diagnostic camera introduced into the oven by remote control, and a computer system for processing the photographic information thus obtained.