Continuous Casting Retrofit With Soft Reduction for Billet Quality
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Solution Overview
Problem
Converting existing continuous casting plants to produce strands with billet or bloom cross-sections is challenging due to high costs, long conversion times, and the need for significant changes to maintain quality and productivity, especially when shifting the solidification point or adapting strand guides.
Innovation Solution
The method involves offsetting the flame cutting machine to create a free space for installing soft reduction units, which adjust the strand thickness using hydraulic rollers, and using insulation tunnels to shift the solidification point, allowing for increased casting speed and cross-section without altering the mold or strand guide, thus enhancing internal quality and reusing existing components.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If the casting speed is increased to improve productivity, then the solidification point shifts backwards in the casting direction, but this requires more intensive secondary cooling or a reduction in casting speed to maintain quality
Solution Approach 1:
The strand guide is divided into multiple segments (first strand guide segment, second strand guide segment, third strand guide segment) that can be independently adjusted. This segmentation allows the solidification point to be precisely controlled at different locations along the strand path without requiring uniform cooling across the entire strand guide, enabling high casting speeds while maintaining strand quality.
Solution Approach 2:
The strand guide segments are designed with adjustable positions and orientations, allowing dynamic adaptation to different casting conditions. The ability to reposition segments enables optimization of the cooling zones to match the shifting solidification point that occurs at different casting speeds, thereby maintaining manufacturing precision across a range of productivity levels.
2Productivity
If the strand cross-section is enlarged to increase productivity, then productivity is improved, but this requires adapting the strand guide or its segments to the changed cross-section, which significantly increases costs
Solution Approach 1:
The strand guide segments are designed as universal, interchangeable components that can accommodate different strand cross-sections (billet, bloom, slab) without requiring complete redesign. The same basic segment structure can be repositioned and reconfigured to handle various product formats, enabling productivity increases through cross-section changes while avoiding significant conversion costs.
Solution Approach 2:
The strand guide system incorporates adjustable and reconfigurable segments that can dynamically adapt to different strand cross-sections. This flexibility allows the existing strand guide infrastructure to serve multiple product specifications, enabling the plant to increase productivity by producing larger cross-sections without incurring the high costs of structural modifications.
3Manufacturing precision
If the bend radius of the strand guide is changed to improve solidification control, then solidification point control is improved, but this cannot be easily changed due to structural conditions (e.g., hall height or existing foundations) or financial constraints
Solution Approach 1:
Rather than changing the overall bend radius of the entire strand guide, the system segments the strand guide into multiple adjustable sections. This allows the effective bending radius to be modified in specific zones where solidification control is needed, without requiring changes to the entire structural framework, hall height, or foundations.
Solution Approach 2:
Instead of modifying the horizontal bend radius which is constrained by structural conditions, the invention introduces vertical adjustment capabilities through adjustable strand guide segments. This allows control of the solidification point by manipulating the vertical position and orientation of segments, effectively changing the strand path geometry in a dimension that does not require major structural modifications.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This approach reduces conversion costs and time, increases productivity, and improves the metallurgical quality of strands by allowing for faster casting speeds and larger cross-sections while maintaining the integrity of existing equipment, ensuring efficient and cost-effective upgrades.
Implementation Method 1
at least one soft reduction unit with an adjusting device and a strand guide roller which can be adjusted by the adjusting device for reducing the thickness of the strand
Implementation Method 2
at least one insulation tunnel for shifting the solidification point of the strand
Implementation Method 3
wherein the strand is cooled in the strand guide by cooling nozzles
Data Source
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AI summary
The invention relates to a method for converting a continuous casting plant for the continuous casting of a strand with a billet or pre-block cross-section, as well as to the converted continuous casting plant. The object of the invention is to increase the productivity of the continuous casting plant and the metallurgical quality of the produced strands through the conversion. This object is achieved by the following steps: i) repositioning the flame cutting machine (6) in the casting direction so that a clearance (F) is created between the last draw-out unit (5) and the repositioned flame cutting machine (6); ii) installing at least one soft reduction unit (8) in the clearance (F), wherein each soft reduction unit (8) has an adjustment device and a strand guide roller adjustable by the adjustment device for reducing the thickness of the strand.