Methods of separating different grades of steel during continuous casting on section and slab casters

Abstract

This article is devoted to the problem of separating different grades of steel cast in succession on section-and slab-type continuous casters, the goal being to reduce the incidence of rejection of steel for incorrect chemical composition. With this as their objective, researchers found that it is necessary to determine the optimum length of the specific semifinished products which serve to separate successive heats of dissimilar steels. A mathematical model was constructed to help determine the optimum lengths of the semifinished products. The model, based on material balance equations, makes it possible to determine the changes that take place in the constituent chemical elements when different grades of steel are cast back-to-back. Having been refined through the use of actual production data to describe those elements’ distributions in the continuous-cast semifinished product, the model was then used to develop an efficient method for extracting and pattern-shearing ingots that function as separators when different grades of steel are cast in a series.