Steel Industry

New benchmark in steel casting

Bloom handling in the new bloom continuous caster of Dongbei Special Steel

Dongbei Special Steel in Dalian City, Liaoning Province, China, successfully commissioned an 800 mm bloom continuous caster of SMS Concast, Switzerland.

“This continuous caster is a milestone in terms of mechanical, electrical and process engineering. It sets a new benchmark in the steel casting industry,” said Luis Hernandez, CEO of SMS Concast. “We integrated various technological innovations. The fact that Dongbei has chosen us as its partner three times already proves we are on the right course with our technology.”

With the new plant, Dongbei and SMS Concast are continuing their long-lasting partnership. Just like the previous plants in Dongbei-Beiman (2002) and Dongbei-Dalian (2011), the new continuous caster produces high-quality special steel blooms. It comes with an annual capacity of up to 450,000 tonnes. The machine casts blooms with diameters of 600 to 800 mm.

Dongbei Special Steel uses the blooms to forge large shafts, tool steel, and stainless steel on its hydraulic presses and radial forging machines from SMS Meer. It supplies these products to the oil, energy, aircraft, and automotive industry.

SMS Concast is a subsidiary of SMS Meer. Since 1954, SMS Concast has been supplying more continuous casting installations than anyone else in the industry.

Recently, South Steel in Jizan, Saudi Arabia, commissioned a minimill from SMS Meer and SMS Concast. The steelworks produces up to 1 million tonnes of billets per year and the rolling mill up to 500,000 tonnes of rebar. The plant satisfies high demands on efficiency, flexibility and productivity.

The electric arc furnace from SMS Concast is equipped with eccentric bottom tapping (EBT) and a full platform is designed for 24 charges per day. The ladle furnace is used for the secondary metallurgy. Eighty per cent HBI (hot-briquetted iron) and 20 per cent scrap are used as raw material, but the furnace can also process up to 100 per cent HBI.

The electrode control and process automation of the steelworks meet very high demands. The continuous caster has five strands and can produce 1 million tonnes of billets in the formats 130 mm square and 150 mm square. Half of the cast billets are sold on the regional market, the other half is further processed while still hot in the rebar mill.

The rolling mill from SMS Meer is equipped with a walking-beam furnace with several control zones: The ratio of fuel to air is monitored separately in each zone, enabling the fuel consumption to be significantly reduced. The furnace can be operated flexibly, irrespective of the production volume.

The fully automated rolling mill consists of 16 housingless stands followed downline by a finishing block with six stands. The compact design of the housingless roll stands and the employment of a finishing block ensure compliance with close tolerances. Thanks to the high-speed delivery system, final rolling speeds onto the cooling bed of up to 41 m/s are possible. The plant can therefore reach a high production rate per hour even for small dimensions.