THE COKE OVEN MANAGERS’ YEAR-BOOK
159.
COKE OVEN DESIGN – THE PAST, THE PRESENT AND THE FUTURE By L A Watson Read before the Northern Section on 15 February 2000 Introduction The by-product coke oven was born in the nineteenth century, developed progressively through the twentieth century and prepares to enter the twenty-first century as a mature technology. Except in the fields of battery control and automation, where designers and operators alike must continue to advance towards full automation of all functions, there is limited scope remaining for further technical advances in the design of the battery itself. The new batteries that will enter service within the next few years will, in all probability, represent the final generation of by-product coke ovens. As the cokemaking technology has matured in recent years there have been profound changes in the coke oven design and construction industry. History has been reversed with the merger of all of the famous old coke oven builders into a single entity. In this paper the development of the by-product coke oven is traced over the years and the product of that development is considered, namely a new facility planned for construction in Germany, the very first twenty-first century coke plant. The Birth of the By-Product Coke Oven The coking or carbonisation of coal has been practised for centuries and for the past 250 years coke ovens in one form or another have been used for the purpose. What we have come to regard as the traditional vertical slot-type oven chamber evolved from the beehive oven with the construction of the Smet ovens in Belgium in the 1850s. By 1861 the Coppée slot-type oven with vertical heating flues was established more or less as the industrial standard of its time. This classical slot-type nonrecovery oven was constructed by several companies, including Dr C Otto Mr Watson is Managing Director of OSC Process Engineering Limited.