Primetals Technologies has received an order from Chinese steel producer Baosteel Zhanjiang for the design, delivery and commissioning of a 2-strand arched continuous casting plant for the production of exceptionally thick slabs.
The casting plant, which is designed to be one of the most powerful in the world, will be used at Baosteel's plant in Zhanjiang, Guangdong Province. It will produce slabs with record-breaking cross-sections of up to 2,700 millimeters wide and 450 millimeters thick.
Scope of supply of the casting plant
Primetals Technologies is responsible for the engineering and implementation as well as the delivery of the mechanical equipment and a comprehensive Level 2 automation package. With an annual capacity of 3.5 million tons of high-quality slabs, the new plant will enable Baosteel to produce plate for heavy-duty areas such as shipbuilding and the wind power industry. Normally, ingot casters or vertical casters are used for products of this thickness. However, neither is as cost-effective and efficient as the new curved continuous caster from Primetals Technologies.
High quality standard
Baosteel's continuous slab caster will be equipped with Primetals Technologies' unique Single Roll DynaGap (SRD) segments. When parameters that affect production, such as steel grade, cooling method and casting speed, change, the process models of the Level 2 automation package dynamically determine the best casting gap so that the SRD segments can optimally adjust the individual roll gaps and forces.
The caster's SRD segments can handle capacities of 5,000 kilonewtons per roll, enabling very large thickness reductions in the casting process. This leads to better internal quality of the cast slabs and thus to the production of defect-free, very thick sheets of high quality.
Halving mold level fluctuations
Another key feature of the casting machine is Primetals Technologies' new method of determining the ideal casting roll geometry during the design phase. This optimized roll geometry reduces mold level fluctuations caused by unsteady dents by 50 percent, enables higher casting speeds and leads to higher productivity. When calculating the optimized geometry, the software tool takes into account a wide range of parameters such as the target steel grade, profile size and casting speed. This determines exactly the right frequency spectrum for the rolls.
Lower energy consumption
Primetals Technologies will implement the proven DynaFlex oscillator concept with a special design concept: Primetals Technologies' engineers have found a way to compensate for high mold weights by using spiral springs. This leads, among other things, to significantly reduced energy consumption.
Primetals Technologies' continuous bending and straightening concept, Smart Segments, together with the design of a dry casting machine with Eco Star rolls, contributes to significantly improved slab surface quality. The internal cooling system of the Eco Star rolls is able to withstand the high temperatures required to minimize surface defects during the dry casting process.
