Technology and hardware design of remelting cast iron shavings by electroslag process

Abstract

The article describes the technology and its hardware design for the processing of cast iron shavings. One of the pressing problems of modern machine-building enterprises is the handling of shaving waste, which occurs during the machining of various kinds of metal workpieces and parts. A distinctive feature of the present development is an integrated approach to this problem, which allows for the continuous processing of cast iron shavings in their original unprepared state in an aggregate from a combination of two components, in which the discussed machine-building shaving waste is heated in a solid state to a temperature of 750–850 ºС with simultaneous release from moisture, coolant, iron oxides (in the first component of the installation) and is transferred to a liquid aggregation state in a barium chloride melt with addition of silicon carbide (in the second component). Natural gas and electrical energy of 0.010–0.012 m3 and 0.75–0.80 kWh, respectively, per 1 kg of the resulting liquid metal are spent on carrying out the described technological operations. As a result of the study of the mode of continuous processing of cast iron shavings at the experimental plant, statistically significant indicators were obtained that characterize its productivity (about 400 kg of liquid metal per hour), the change in the mass and chemical composition of the material being remelted with the achievement of low losses for waste (2.2% wt.) and the preservation of the main alloying element of cast iron - carbon. The purpose of this study is to develop a technology and its hardware design for processing of cast iron shavings with a minimum percentage of waste.