The machine head and the complete strand-guiding system will be replaced. The modernization will also increase the maximum slab thickness to 357 mm. The plant’s production capacity is around 2.3 million t/a. Once cast, the slabs are further processed in Baosteel’s plate rolling mill and hot rolling mill.
The Baosteel Group is one of the world’s largest iron and steel corporations, producing around 35 million t of steel in 2015. Baosteel produces high-quality products for both the domestic and the world markets. Continuous slab caster no. 3 was constructed by JSP and has been producing slabs with a minimum thickness of 220 mm since 2003. It has a machine radius of 10 m and a metallurgical length of 34.5 m. On completion of the modernization it will be able to cast slabs in thicknesses of 250, 300 and 357 mm in widths ranging from 1,200–2,300 mm. The range of products includes extremely low to high-carbon steels, micro and low-alloyed, peritectic and HSLA grades, structural steels, pipes and sheet steels.
Primetals will be responsible for the basic and detail engineering of the caster, supervise manufacturing, installation and commissioning, and supply all technological components. The casting plant will be equipped with a straight cassette-type Smart Mold with LevCon mold level control, Mold Expert for automatic breakout detection and process data monitoring, DynaWidth for inline control of the slab width, the DynaFlex mold oscillator and an electromagnetic mold stirrer.
High-temperature-casting (DynaTac)-compatible EcoStar Spiral rollers will be used to support the strand in the strand-guiding system segments. To dynamically control the strand temperature, the process models DynaPhase and Dynacs 3D will be used. It dynamically calculates and controls a three-dimensional temperature profile along the whole length of the strand. This enables the working points of the strand cooling and thus the final strand solidification to be determined precisely as functions of the casting speed, slab format and steel grade. An improvement in interior slab quality is achieved by using DynaGap Soft Reduction 3D. The roll gap is dynamically adjusted during the final solidification in line with the set points calculated by Dynacs 3D. The 3D spray system has movable nozzles in the segments to ensure uniform, optimal cooling of the slabs over their entire width.
_{(Source: Primetals Technologies, Limited)}