The Butterfly Diversity in Bhilai Mahila Mahavidyalaya College Campus

In the midst of the industrial area of Bhilai steel plant, the greenery on the campus of this college provides a home for many butterflies. The diversity of butterflies was investigated within the college campus of Bhilai Mahila Mahavidyalaya, Bhilai, which lies in the Durg district of Chattisgarh State. The state enjoys a tropical climate. The survey was done from February 2015 to October 2015. This period includes the summer and monsoon months. During the survey, a total of 45 species, belonging to five families of the Order Lepidoptera, were recorded in the study area. The predominance of family Nymphalidae was noted, which comprised of 37.77% of the butterflies surveyed, followed by Pieridae (22.22%), Papilionidae (20%), Lycaenidae (11.11%), and Hesperidae (8.88%). Among the forty-five species of butterflies investigated, 11 species come under the Indian Wild Life (Protection) Act 1972.

NEW GENERATION ENERGY EFFICIENT REFRACTORY APPLICATION IN SOAKING PITS OF BHILAI STEEL PLANT, SAIL

In Bhilai Steel Plant (BSP), soaking pits are used for heating ingots for successive rolling into blooms. Pits are operated at a temperature of around 1350°C. Mixed gas (Mixture of Blast Furnace gas & Coke Oven gas) of calorific value around 2040 kcal/Nm3 is used as fuel. The walls of soaking pits were lined with traditional 38% Al 2 O 3 firebricks and top 500mm was cast with 70% Al 2 O 3 low cement castable (LCC). This type of lining results in frequent damages due to hitting by ingots while being lifted from pit by overhead cranes thus affecting the availability of pit. Life of pits was 2 to 2.5 years in BSP with 3-4 cold repairs and 3-4 hot repairs. Energy loss through the wall is also quite high in this type of lining. To triumph over the limitations of the conventional lining, a lining design was developed for the walls which consist of special 70% Al 2 O 3 LCC having high hot strength (HMOR) in combination with specially design flexible SS-304 anchors. Ceramic fiber blanket and insulation bricks were provided between castable and the metallic shell of the pit to minimize the heat loss. A heating schedule was developed and introduced based on available infrastructure at BSP for proper curing of modified LCC based lining. After introduction of modified lining, pit no. 14/2 is running for more than 2.5 years without any repair. To capitalize the success, two more pits i.e. 12/1 and 9/2 were converted to modified lining. These pits are also running satisfactorily for more than 1.5 years. The modification has resulted in higher availability with substantial increase in production. Shell temperature of the modified pits reduced to 90° – 140°C from 120° – 200°C of conventional pits. This shows reduction in heat loss through walls, resulting less fuel consumption and energy saving of about 18%.