Mastering the use of special mixtures for ingot production at the Gorky Metallurgical Plant

Abstract

The electric steelmaking shop at the Gorky Metallurgical Plant has been using special mixtures made by European companies for the bottom-pouring of 1050-1400-kg ingots, including ingots of low-alloy structural steels with a carbon content up to 0.5% and tool steels (carbon and alloy) with a carbon content above 0.5%. The mixtures are used together with exothermic mixtures that provide additional heat for the top part of the ingots. To replace the costly imported mixtures with cheaper compositions without adversely affecting the surface quality of the ingots and finished rolled products, tests were conducted on two special slag-forming mixtures made by the company Tekhmet (Donetsk, Ukraine). This article presents the chemical and thermophysical characteristics of the experimental mixtures and quality indices of the metal obtained from rolling ingots cast with these compositions and the imported mixtures.