Japanese State of the Art Continuous Casting Process

Abstract

In the Japanese steelmaking industry, continuous casting technologies for manufacturing defect-free slab or bloom with high productivity are becoming increasingly important. The surface and internal defects of steel products attributable to steelmaking conditions originate in the entrapment of inclusions or gas bubbles by the solidifying shell in the casting mold or strand, and in the formation of center-line segregation at the final stage of solidification. To suppress such defects and ensure high quality in continuous casting process, many advanced technologies have been developed and applied in industrial plants as follows:
(1) To promote the removal of inclusion from molten steel in the tundish, centrifugal flow tundish (CF-tundish) or H-shaped tundish was developed.
(2) To prevent the entrainment of inclusion or gas bubbles into molten steel in the mold, flow control devices using the electromagnetic brake and electromagnetic stirrer have been adopted. Flow control mold is one example which is characterized by two static magnetic fields imposed on the entire width of a slab. Surface and internal defects in cast slabs are remarkably reduced by this newly designed tool.
(3) To reduce the degree of center-line segregation, the solft-reduction process with a plane reduction unit or short-pitched roll segment for cast slab and continuous forging process with an anvil for cast bloom were applied to practical operations.