EVRAZ Holding LLC (Moscow, Russia):

P. N. Fedkin, Project Manager of Operation Improvements, E-mail: Pavel.Fedkin@evraz.com

EVRAZ NTMK JSC (Nizhniy Tagil, Russia):
A. V. Chiglintsev, Deputy Head of Basic Oxygen Converter Shop, E-mail: Aleksej.Chiglintsev@evraz.com
P. A. Zazhigaev, Technical Director, E-mail: Pavel.Zazhigaev@evraz.com
Yu. A. Danilin, Chief Steelmaker, E-mail: Yury.Danilin@evraz.com

Oxygen lancing of the casting ladle slide gate contaminates steel with non-metallic inclusions, negatively aff ects the quality of billets made by continuous casting machines and casting speed, and increases waste casting. The root causes and factors preventing filling sand from freely falling from a slide gate taphole have been considered and identified based on the analysis of slide gate operation for casting ladles with shroud at EVRAZ NTMK Basic Oxygen Converter Shop No. 1. The proposed solution improves free opening performance of ladles (neither mechanical work nor oxygen lancing) from 95 to 99%. A technology to fill a casting ladle discharge channel with nozzle sand has been developed and implemented to ensure free fall of nozzle sand from the discharge channel. The provided commercial melting results confi rm the effectiveness of the proposed technology.
The authors are grateful to I. M. Zakharov, the head of the JSC EVRAZ NTMK basic oxygen converter shop, for the help in the experiments.

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