The existing steel plant consists of a 160-t electric arc furnace, ladle furnace, billet caster and rolling mill and shall increase the annual production to 1,500,000 t of steel after installation of the new billet caster. The caster will be designed for fast casting of square billets with an edge length of 165 mm.
SMS Concast’s caster configuration will allow the common use of spares in two different steel meltshops. This is one big feature to decrease Opex.
Furthermore, latest technology will be applied to reach the specified productivity and Opex targets. One special product is the lowmaintenance oscillation drive called Condrive, another the advanced Invex mold technology.
The Condrive mold oscillation represents a totally new approach combining the advantages of hydraulic and mechanic drives in one. Due to the innovative torque drive, the amplitude, frequency and oscillation profile can be adjusted online and independently. Thus it grants full functionality, however without the hydraulic system drawbacks in terms of maintenance and piping. In this context, Condrive is one part of the advanced maintenance concept with a view to reduced spare parts inventory.
Regarding productivity, the SMS Concast-developed Invex mold allows for very high strand throughputs in the area of 790 kg/min. The special tube geometry and enhanced water cooling features allow the mold to achieve efficient heat transfer and thus a more uniform solidification at the faces and in the corner areas, thus enabling higher casting speeds.
“Considering the very good performance of the existing SMS Concast equipment, its advanced technology and reduced Opex, we have decided to go for another co-operation in order to implement our expansion plan,” says Mr. Purushottam Prasad from JSW Steel Ltd.
_{(Source: SMS group)}