Calderys Deutschland GmbH & Co. OHG, Neuwied:

Patrick Tassot, Dr. rer. nat., Steel Market Senior Manager, patrick.tassot@calderys.com

Norbert Reichert, Eng., Steel Senior Manager

Craig Willoughby, Eng., Steel Segment Market Manager

Calderys Corporate, Issy les Moulineaux, France:

Christian Turrel, Eng. Steel Market Engineer

The role of the tundish in the continuous casting process has evolved to this as a metallurgical reactor. For both, grade separation and inclusion removal, the flow patterns inside the tundish play an important role. One constantin the world of high purity, low residual and clean steels is the continual drive to reduce and control the source, frequency and size of the inclusions. Recently, a new system, the porous annular well block for injecting argon, has been developed to achieve a high efficiency in floating out larger inclusions and decreasing the hydrogen and nitrogen content in the steel. The increasing demands for steel cleanliness by continual improvements in steel processing and refining are a demanding aspect of refractory and steel engineering. The importance of understanding the behaviour of the tundish as a “further refining vessel” cannot be under estimated with each coponent and its interaction with steel worthy of close analysis. The effect of the tundish wear lining, both in regard to thermal profile as well as chemical interaction with the liquid melt has meant the continual development of products with the aim of lower water content products. Calderys’ technology of “dry” ramming masses for hot and cold tundish installation conditions are meeting the technological demands in ensuring minimal hydrogen and carbon pickup of the steel. The addition of Calde Plug Tundish WB as partof the flow control dynamics management of the tundish helps to reduce potentially damaging vortexes, contributes to increasing the residence time of the steel within the tundish, which allows for increased interaction of favourable slags that would critically assist with alumina absorption as well as improvements in final hydrogen levels.

1. Ikeda, M.: History of continuous casting of steel in Japan, ISIJ, 1996, Ch. 6, p. 482.

2. Sahai, Y.; Emi, T.: Tundish technology for clean steel production, World Scientific Publ., Singapore, 2008, p. 188.

3. Yu, Z.; Zheng, W.: Rev. de Mét. 98 (2001) No 4, p. 327/34.

4. Beiter, C. K.: Dry tundish working linings, Proc. 34th Ann. St. Louis Sympos. on Refractories, 1998, p. 237/43.

5. Knoepke J.; Mastervich, J.: Water modelling Inland Steel’s No. 3 combination caster, Proc. Steelmaking Conf., ISS-AIME 69 (1986), p. 777/88.

6. Yamanaka H.; Terajima T. et al.: Tetsu-to-Hagane 69 (1983) No. 15, p. 213.

7. Suh, D.; Eagar, T. W.: Mechanistic understanding of hydrogen in steel welds, Proc. Int. Workshop Conf. On Hydrogen Management for Welding Applications, Ottawa, Canada, 6 – 8 Oct 1998.

8. Tassot, P.; Reichert, N.: Rev. de Mét. 107 (2010) No. 5, p. 177/85.

9.  Kuspekov, K. M.: Internal report, KSP Steel, Kazakhstan, 2008.