What is a Coke Oven:
In many steel plants, coke is used as a primary fuel to ignite blast furnaces and many other processes. It can be said that coke oven is an industrial facility to produce coke, which is carbonaceous material derived from coal.
Coke ovens play a crucial role in the steel and other metallurgical industries, providing essential material and energy. The doors of these ovens are made up of refractory linings and act as a critical component throughout the process.
The main primary function of the coke oven door is to seal the coke oven chamber to maintain the controlled environment throughout the carbonization process. Proper sealing prevents the escape of gases generated during the coking process. Not only this, but a coke oven door will also minimize the release of pollutants and thus helps in controlling air pollution.
The design and material used for these doors must balance durability, heat resistance and to create an effective sealed environment. Also, proper functioning of coke oven doors is very important for efficiency and safety of production operators.
Thermal Monitoring of coke oven door refractory:
The refractory lining of coke oven door has limited lives, as it starts degrading over time due to regular impact of high temperature, which may lead to complete depletion and greater chances of accidents.
The risk of breakdown of these refractories will always be present in metallurgical plants, with equipment damage and loss of production leading to costly consequences.
Not only this, but there is also a high risk of personnel injuries and loss of life, due to the refractory breakdown. Regular maintenance and inspection of coke oven doors are essential, to ensure that they remain effective and to minimise the risk of breakdown.
Thermal monitoring of coke oven doors is a critical practice in the coke oven factory, which is particularly aimed at maintaining operational efficiency and ensuring safety. Thermal imaging boosts the carbonizing process and increases longevity of coke production facilities. Using thermal mapping, operators can effectively monitor and manage the thermal conditions of coke oven doors, ensuring smooth and safe operations.Â
Pyrosens’s Solution:
Pyrosens’s high resolution ThermCAM-series integrated with InfraVIEW 
software provides a precise and reliable temperature measurement solution to enhance plant safety and efficiency and helps in organising proper maintenance schedules in coke oven plants as it provides continuous thermal monitoring with pin sharp images as well as a large panel area for temperature measurement.
To acquire more precise information and temperature of a particular region, user can create different types of RoIs in various shapes and 
sizes for further analysis and reports.
Alarms and indicators can be installed to generate signals if in case any abnormalities are detected and reviewing the process condition is required. These alert signals can also be received over email and SMS/ E-mail as required by the user.
Software Configuration:
InfraVIEW is a windows-based software which is particularly dedicated for industrial and metallurgical thermal imaging applications. The InfraVIEW software provides easy and quick framework for the 
documentation of the recorded raw data which has been continuously captured through thermal camera.
InfraVIEW software provides high-speed real time data acquisition through which one can easily record, view, analyse and store the captured thermal videos/ images as well as the temperature data. It also allows captured temperature data to be integrated to I/O modules or can be connected to PLC via OPC/UA server.
Salient features of InfraVIEW Software:
- Real-time display of thermal images.
- Includes 9 different color palates, according to user application.
- Multiple types of ROI including point, line, and area with min./max./avg. temperature display.
- Histogram and trend chart of ROI can be generated for data analysis.
- Temperature Display on Mouse Over.
- Alarm generation for entire or ROI based on minimum, maximum or average temperature.
- Data export to text or Microsoft Excel (includes thermal image, ROI table summary/data, image data).
Thermal Camera Connections:
Advantages of the system
- Automatic and non-contact temperature measurement system, which enhances the process and personnel safety.
- Quick fault analysis.
- Increases refractory lifespan.
- Allows timely relining of door refractory.
- Easy interface and flexible according to operation needs.
