Continuous Casting Steel Process

The continuous casting steel process referred to as continuous casting for short, refers to the process of casting, condensing and cutting liquid steel with a continuous caster to directly obtain a billet. It is an intermediate link between steelmaking and steel rolling. Whether the continuous casting production is normal or not directly affects the quality and yield of rolled products.

Technological Process

The continuous casting steel process is a process of continuous production of billets with forced cooling when the molten steel is in motion. The molten steel from the steelmaking furnace is injected into the ladle, and then transported to the upper part of the continuous casting machine after secondary refining treatment. The molten steel is injected into the tundish through the nozzle at the bottom of the ladle, and then the tundish distributes the molten steel to the water-cooled crystallizer whose lower opening is blocked by the dummy bar head. In the mold, the molten steel gradually freezes along its periphery to form a shell.

When the shell at the lower end outlet of the mold has a certain thickness, start the billet drawing machine and mold vibration device at the same time to make the billet with liquid core enter the arc guide section composed of several clamping rollers. The slab goes down at this side and continues to solidify after being forced cooled by atomized water from many nozzles arranged according to certain rules in the secondary cooling area. After the dummy bar leaves the billet leveler, it is separated from the casting blank. After the casting blank is straightened and completely solidified, the cutting device will cut it into a fixed length casting blank, and finally, the billet discharging device will transport the fixed length casting blank to the designated place. With the continuous injection of molten steel, the billet is continuously extended downward and cut away, forming the whole continuous casting steel process.

Equipment Composition

The equipment used for the continuous casting steel process can generally be divided into two parts: main equipment and auxiliary equipment.

The main equipment mainly includes: ladle rotary table, tundish, and its carrier car; Mold and its vibrating device; Secondary cooling support device; Drawing straightening equipment, dummy bar, ingot stripping and dummy bar storage device; Cutting equipment, etc.

Auxiliary equipment mainly includes billet discharging and finishing equipment - roller table, steel pulling (pushing) machine, steel turnover machine, flame cleaning machine, etc; Process equipment - tundish baking device, argon blowing device, degassing device, protective slag supply and mold lubrication device, electromagnetic stirring device, etc; Automatic control and measuring instruments - mould level measurement and display system, process control computer, temperature measurement, weight measurement, pressure measurement, length measurement, speed measurement, and other instrument systems.

Characteristics of Continuous Casting Steel Process

The continuous casting steel process has the following advantages over the traditional mold casting process:

(1) The process is simplified and the technological process is shortened. Compared with mold casting technology, the continuous casting technology eliminates such processes as demoulding, whole mold, ingot soaking, and billet opening, which can save 40% of the infrastructure investment, 30% of the floor area, and 70% of the labor force. With the emergence of new technologies such as thin slab continuous casting and rolling, the continuous casting process and working procedure have been further simplified, and the rough rolling unit has been omitted. As a result, the plant area has been reduced by 40%, the quality of the continuous casting machine has been reduced by 50%, the production cycle from liquid steel to thin slab has been greatly shortened, and the cost has been greatly reduced.

(2) The production process has been optimized, and continuous and compact production has been realized. The experience control has been changed to the accurate control of constant temperature and constant speed throughout the process, and the production efficiency has been significantly improved.

(3) High metal yield. Compared with die casting, metal yield is increased by 8%~14%; The products produced by the continuous casting process are closer to the final shape, eliminating the heating and billet opening processes of die casting, further reducing the metal loss, and increasing the metal yield by about 9%.

(4) Low energy consumption. By adopting the continuous casting steel process, the combustion and power consumption in the process of mold castings such as billet opening and heating are saved, and the energy consumption can be reduced by 1/4~1/2. According to statistics, compared with the die casting process, the continuous casting process can reduce energy consumption by 400~1200MJ, which is equivalent to saving 10~30kg of heavy oil when producing 1 ton of billets.

(5) High level of mechanization and automation. With the development of technology in the past decade, the automatic control and mechanization in continuous casting production have become higher and higher, the per capita productivity has grown rapidly, and the management means and level of enterprises have also been constantly improved.

Looking for a customized continuous casting machine, please feel free to contact me.

Email: [email protected]; [email protected].

WhatsApp & WeChat: +8618392033938..

Website: www.hanmetallurgy.com; www.hanrm.com.