The quality and quantity of steel treated in an RH vessel can beenhanced through the optimization of the metallurgical reactionsoccurring during vacuum treatment and with an improvement in theequipment design and plant layout to reduce production-time losses.The enlargement of the diameter of the snorkel and vesselcontribute to an accelerated reaction rate inside the vessel and to anincrease in the overall productivity of an RH plant. With the introductionof twin-station RH plants in connection with a quick vesselexchangedesign, the loss of production time due to ladle transfer,vessel exchange and snorkel maintenance can be significantly reduced.