In view of the fracture problems caused by operation reasons, control reasons and electrode quality reasons of graphite electrode in steelmaking, we make the following preventive measures and operational suggestions.

First, if the fracture is caused by smelting operation, we can do the following preventive measures.

(1) The electrode shall adopt the strength suitable for the process requirements. The connector electrode shall be cleaned with nuts of appropriate strength and a special clamping device. Before replacing the electrode, tighten the ring to ensure that the ring is in close contact with the electrode.

(2) Reasonable fabric structure: In order to avoid the light and thin steel material forming a ball on the top of the furnace is difficult to go down, large scrap scrap collapse to break the electrode, all kinds of scrap in the basket of cloth and add to the furnace situation need to be reasonable configuration.

(3) The electrode holder should avoid being clamped in the white line between the electrode connection. The electrode connection shall not be above the electrode holder. The electrode holder should not be clamped onto an open hood or a hood with a sling.

(4) When smelting, especially when close to melting, we should carefully observe the distribution of non-melting material. In order to avoid collapsing material breaking the electrode, when the bridge structure has been formed, we should first blow oxygen or physical swing or shaking to make the charge collapse in the case of power failure and electrode has been elevated.

The second is to control the cause of the break.

(1) After high voltage transmission, it is necessary to observe whether the three phases of no-load voltage in the secondary short network are balanced.

(2) After the first phase electrode drops into contact with scrap steel, observe whether the secondary voltage of the phase electrode drops immediately.

(3) Periodically detect whether the braking force of the electrode hydraulic drive mechanism and the system delay coefficient change.

(4) Before the electrode is automatically lowered, confirm that there is no non-conductive object in the scrap steel layer directly below the electrode.

(5) When arc occurs in a phase electrode, whether the secondary current display of the phase electrode can be seen (ammeter pointer has a large swing).

Third, the fracture caused by the internal quality of the electrode.

In the smelting process, the key technical indicators of electrode (joint) finally affect the electrode fracture, but the actual smelting effect of domestic ultra-high power graphite electrode is obviously different from that of foreign products of the same specification. Therefore, it is one-sided to judge the quality of electrode (joint) only by the physicochemical indicators. A set of scientific and reasonable electrode production and technical application scheme should be established by taking full account of the compatibility between our products and different customers’ smelting process, furnace structure and smelting steel type.