Control of Macrosegregation Behavior by Applying Final Electromagnetic Stirring for Continuously Cast High Carbon Steel Billet

Abstract

Solidification behavior of continuously cast high carbon steel billets was investigated with an objective of producing high quality billets by determining the optimum final electromagnetic stirring (F-EMS) parameters. Characteristics of centerline segregation were analyzed for lots of billet samples collected from the plant through obtaining the carbon concentrations of drill chips, which were correlated with the operating parameters of the caster and stirrers, but a problem occurred that segregation control results of trial billets with the same casting and stirring parameters often have drastic fluctuations. An attempt was made to find out the induced reasons of this problem by measuring the electromagnetic torque, analyzing the secondary dendrite arm spacing (SDAS) and the corresponding cooling rate of the typical specimens, and observing the longitudinal profile of etched billet samples. Then a simple dynamic secondary cooling model was developed based on the solidified shell thickness control mode, by which the maximum carbon segregation index was reduced effectively, and thus the segregation fluctuation problem was basically solved. Finally, the most favourable stirring parameters were determined as the casting speed of 1.65 m/min, the liquid core thickness of 40 mm, stirring current of 360 A and frequency of 12 Hz.