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E. S. Szekeres
Overview
Steel is societys most widely-used metal. The production of usable steel products requires a step in
which molten metal is converted into solid. By the
middle of the 20th century, the most common procedure for this conversion was the teeming of liquid
metal from a ladle into one or more cast-iron molds.
The solidified metal, after separation from the mold,
dure is referred to as ingot casting. However,
large-size ingots need to be hot-worked in primary
mills into more-manageable semifinished forms (or
semis) such as slabs, blooms, or billets; a rather
capital-intensive step.
The idea of converting liquid metal directly into
semi-shaped solids in a more-or-less continuous
fashion appeared as early as 1840, in a patent
describing the casting of lead. The process that
evolved became known as continuous casting (also
called strand casting). Initially, only nonferrous
metals such as brass could be strand cast successfully. The strand casting of steel was found to be
more problematic because of higher liquid temperatures, lower thermal diffusivity, and a relatively
slow solidification rate. Nevertheless, within a few
decades following World War II strand casting of
steel finally began to emerge as a commerciallyviable process (a century after the initial concept!).
In the USA, the first strand casters for steel
production were primarily experimental (pilot) units.
In 1946 a pilot caster was installed at a Babcock &
Wilcox plant in Beaver Falls, PA. Soon after,
another pilot facility began operating at Allegheny
Ludlum in Watervliet, NY. However, the first
commercial unit for casting steel in North America
was installed in Canada. That caster started up in
January, 1954, at Atlas Steels Ltd. in Welland, Ont.
It took another nine years before the first commercial caster for steel in the USA began production at
Roanoke Electric Steel Corp. in Roanoke, VA, in
July, 1962.
As process improvements were made, the use of
strand casting to produce steel semis grew steadily
(along with the basic oxygen steelmaking process).
By the late 1960s, strand casting began to replace
Ladle
Liquid
Shroud
tube
Tundish
Open stream or
Gas shrouded stream or
Submerged entry nozzle
Oscillating Mold
Foot rolls
Sprays
Strand
containment
rolls
Strand
Drive rolls
Cut-off
Semi
Fig 1
The continuous casting process creates a liquidcontaining ribbon-like body generically called a
strand. Tractive effort to move the emerging strand
through the casting machine (caster) is provided and
controlled by motor-driven rolls (drives), which positively contact the strand at several locations below the
mold. By balancing the mass withdrawal rate of the
strand with the mass rate at which liquid enters the
mold the liquid level in the mold is kept relatively
constant. Beyond mold exit, water is usually sprayed
onto the strand as a secondary cooling step to obtain a
desired strand surface temperature profile and to cool
the contacting rolls and/or adjacent equipment. However, some casters are designed so that secondary
spray-cooling of the strand is not required. This is
sometimes referred to as dry casting.
Flexible Top-Charged
The metallurgical length of a strand is the distance, measured along the strand, from the liquid
level in the mold (the meniscus) to a cross-sectional
plane containing the assumed point of complete
solidification. With thicker sections and typical
casting speeds the liquid core can extend well over
100 feet (31 m), making the strand, in effect, a very
long tank of liquid steel! A corollary term, the
metallurgical length of a caster, refers to the longest
liquid core allowed by the machines design.
Rigid Curved
Flexible Bottom-Charged
Rigid Vertical
Fig 2
As liquid metal enters the mold, the watercooled walls, the stool, and the pre-added chill-scrap
together extract heat rapidly from the liquid. A solid
shell quickly forms, which casts-in an interlocking
connection with the stool. When the mold is nearly
full, the starter bar and the connected new solid shell
begin to be withdrawn at a prescribed rate and casting proceeds. After the strand becomes long enough
to be contacted and controlled by drive-rolls, the
head-end of the strand is disconnected from the
starter bar in some fashion.
Billet or Round =
< 6 x 6 in ( 150 mm sq )
ROUND
5 to 35.5 in
( 127 to 900 mm )
1
1
<
2.5
1
NON-SYMETRICAL
d
BEAM BLANK
Slab
2.5
1
to
30
1
Fig 4
JUMBO SLAB
CONVENTIONAL SLAB
INTERMEDIATE SLAB
>
BLOOM
NEAR-NET
CONVENTIONAL
BEAM BLANK
Bloom
Caster configurations. The number of independent strands fed by one ladle is often used to
describe a casting machine. A single-strand or a
dual-strand configuration is common for slab casting, Figure 5. In dual-strand casters, each strand has
an independent set of drive rolls. Therefore, casting
speed need not be the same for both strands.
3 to 6 in ( 80 to 150 mm ) thick
THIN SLAB
2 to 3 in ( 50 to 80 mm ) thick
STRIP
Fig 3
Fig 5
Fig 7
Fig 6
Liq
Liq
Containment
Length
P
d of
Instea
me
rolls, so
ha ve a
casters
em at
st
sy
grid
it
mold ex
Metallurgical
Length
Bloom Caster
Fig 8
Slab Caster
Fig 10
Casting/Rolling Plants
Originally most all semis coming off conventional
strand casters were allowed to cool to ambient temperature. Sometimes, particularly wide semis were
then torch-cut longitudinally, an operation known as
slitting. (One disadvantage of slitting semis is that it
exposes both voids and coarse as-cast internal structure.) With time, it became obvious that further
savings in energy and handling costs could be
obtained by linking the casting operation with the
subsequent hot-rolling operation. Of course, this is
Fig 11
Although a few thin-slab casters operate without subsequent hot-direct-rolling, a distinct benefit is
obtained by casting a thin slab and introducing this
section into a continuous hot strip mill (HSM). For
example, in one type of layout a 50 to 80 mm thick
strand is cast and the resulting slabs move directly
into a HSM, Figure 12. Obviously, such a linkage
requires a smaller plant footprint.
Also, it
eliminates the need for a roughing stand(s), which
reduce conventional slab thickness down to transferbar thickness. However, between the casting and
rolling operation a tunnel-type temperature equalizing (homogenizing) furnace is required. Such
furnaces differ from conventional reheat furnaces in
that the product is already at elevated temperature.
Ladle
Tundish
Mold
Tunnel Furnace
Thin-slab-casting-and-rolling.
In the late
1980s, thin-slab casting was considered as "lessconventional," casting, in spite of its many similarities with "conventional" slab casting. However,
thins slab casting quickly developed to the point
where there are presently so many thin slab casters
around the world that thin-slab casting is considered
as just another form of conventional slab casting. A
key to its utility is the ability to link casting with
subsequent rolling. The linkage of thin slab casting
with a continuous hot rolling mill has had a significant economic impact on the production of coiled
flat-rolled steel products, of which the automobile
industry is a major consumer.
Descaler
Laminar-Flow Cooling
Coiler
Downcoiler
Fig 12
An example of how casting/rolling facility layouts can vary is the new Arvedi ESP line located in
Cremona, Italy, Figure 13. There, a strand thickness
of 100 mm is cast on an intermediate thickness
caster with liquid core reduction decreasing strand
thickness to about one-half. After complete solidification, and without any auxiliary heating, the strand
Thin Slab
Caster
Reduction
Mill
Finishing
Mill
Pendulum
Shear
Transfer
Bar Piler
Induction
Heater
Fig 13
Less-Conventional Casters
The development of strand casting has included a
variety of uniquely-configured machines. Many
unique casters were simply "one-shot" pilot casting
attempts.
Examples are; the Watts/Technicon
closed-end-mold horizontal process; the Southwire
"wheel-and-belt" caster; and the horizontal rotarytrough caster promoted by Meinhold/Ameri-Cast.
Nevertheless, several unique casters did prove to be
commercially-viable and are worthy of mention.
VALLOURECS ROTARY
CASTER FOR ROUNDS
Fig 15
Source: Hazelett website
Fig 14
NOZZLE
BREAK RING
LIQ METAL
STRAND
MOLD ASSEMBLY
HOLDING FURNACE
(TUNDISH)
DRIVE ROLLS
Fig 16
From Killmore, et al
Fig 17
TR =
w d Vc 0.266
2000
(1)
Where:
TR = tonnage rate, tons/min
w = strand width at mold bottom, in
d = strand thickness at mold bottom, in
Vc = casting speed, ipm
In metric units
Direct-to-strip casting. The term strip casting refers to a casting process that casts a section
essentially the same as a section emanating from a
hot strip mill. In other words, strip casting eliminates the need for reheating of a semi and also the
subsequent rolling mill. The aim of strip casting is
to directly-cast sections between 0.01 and 0.20 inch
(0.25 and 5 mm) thick and in widths up to 72 inches
(1830 mm) wide.
TR =
w d Vc 7.36
106
(2)
Where:
TR = tonnage rate, tonnes/min
w = strand width at mold bottom, mm
d = strand thickness at mold bottom, mm
Vc = casting speed, meters/min
2.4
1.4
AVG CAST RATE
1.2
1.0
5 tons/min
CASTING TIME
7800 hrs/yr
TURNR'ND TIME
CASTER YIELD
70 min
98 %
9 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Fig 19
Heat B
Dummy Bar
Heat A
1.6
Ladle Exchange
Heat C
1.8
SEQUENCE CASTING
Heat B
2.0
0.8
BATCH CASTING
2.2
Heat A
Fig 18
Long sequence casting can complicate the provisioning of slabs for different ordered widths. In
the past, specific slab widths could only be obtained
by exchanging molds between sequences or by slab
slitting. With normal slab slitting, caster slabs are
cooled to ambient temperatures and then torch cut
longitudinally into two-or-more narrower widths.
Rod
INGOT
CAST
Rod
STRAND
STRAND
CAST
2
10/1
30/1
100
150
200
250
300
Fig 21
1000
100
3/1
STRAND THICKNESS, mm
Wire
Sheet
4 times
50
INGOT
CAST
1.3/1
10000
Wire
1/1
Sheet
Bar
CAST
Plate
10
Bar
Plate
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
01
Thickness, inches
10
100
1000
2/1
4/ 1
6/ 1
REDUCTION RATIO
8/ 1
10 / 1
12 / 1
Fig 22
10
Furthermore, the factors responsible for these imperfections can be grouped as:
Area I: Those factors associated with the
preparation and handling of the liquid steel, from the
furnace on through to the flow conditions within the
liquid entering the mold.
Area II: Those factors related to the composition of the solidifying material. For example,
higher levels of certain elements such as carbon,
sulfur, phosphorous, aluminum, nitrogen and
niobium, to name just a few, make steel more prone
to quality problems. Also, included is superheat
temperature, which influences the manner in which
steel solidifies.
Fig 23
11
Ar
Argon-Pressurized
Pour-Box
Ar
Ar
Bellows and
Pouring Cone
Fig 24
Argon-Flushed
Sealed tundish
Fig 4
Fig
Fig 26
24
Ladle cover
Synthetic
ladle slag
Ladle
Liquid
Steel
Ladle gate
system
L/T shroud
tube
Tundish cover
Tundish
powder
Tundish
Liq
Tundish gate
system
Submerged Entry
Nozzle (SEN)
Mold powder
(Flux)
Mold
L
i
q
One-Piece
Submerged -Entry
Nozzle (SEN)
Strand
Fig 25
Two-Piece
Submerged -Entry
Shroud (SES)
Fig 27
12
Trifurcated
4 - Port
Fig 28
Some common tundish-to-mold pouring systems, used primarily in casting smaller sections, are
depicted in Figure 29. For Si-killed steels the tundish stream may be open, i.e., unprotected. In
some cases, a funnel and mold powder are used in
combination. The funnel allows the benefits of
fluxing without the adverse effects of pouring
through a powder layer. For more sensitive steels,
inert gas protection may be done with a Pollard-type
shroud or a bellows shroud.
TUNDISHTUNDISH-TOTO-MOLD FREEFREE-STREAM
POURING PRACTICES
Metering
Nozzle
Stopper
Rod
Sequential Throttling
Gate
Gate
Fig 30
Open Pour
Funnel Plus
Mold Powder
Pollard-Type
Gas Shroud
Bellows-Type
Gas Shroud
Fig 29
13
To counter an inherent alumina clogging problem, a stopper rod may be bored-out along its axis to
allow injection of an inert gas (usually argon or
nitrogen), Figure 31. However, with this procedure
there is a propensity for undesirable argon bubbles to
be entrapped in the as-cast product. Moreover, any
buildup of solid metal (skulling) is not alleviated
by inert-gas injection. With better liquid cleanliness
provided by proper ladle metallurgy and tundish
practices, the use of gas injection via the stopper rod
has become more-or-less obsolete.
CLOGGING IN AN Ar-INJECTED
ONE-PIECE SEN SYSTEM
Argon
Stopper
Rod
Liquid
Controlling
orifice
Clogging
Sites
SEN
Mold
Fig 31
14
To circumvent clogging and still make true Alkilled steel (Al > 0.015%) aluminum wire is sometimes fed continuously into the tundish-to-mold
pouring stream. This technique is most applicable
when casting smaller strand sections. However, it
requires adequate gas shrouding of the pouring system as well as the liquid in the mold.
In slab casting, systems are available that allow
a clogged or worn SEN to replaced without slowing
the casting rate and/or raising the tundish. When
space allows, an SEN tube changer can be used,
Figure 32. With such a system a new tube assembly
is put into a temporary holding position. Then in a
mater of a few seconds this tube is hydraulically
fired into casting position. The used tube is then
extracted and discarded. Obviously, such a mechanism only works with a two-piece SEN system.
Fig 32
.oOo.
E. S. Szekeres
Brimacombe Continuous
Casting Course
May, 2011
15