Audits of Secondary Cooling Systems in Existing Casters as Method to Enhance Product Quality and Productivity

摘要

Over the life span of a Continuous casting machine the requirements in terms of product quality and the range of steel grades may change significantly. A maximisation of production output can be an additional requirement to existing machines. In particular the capability of the installed secondary cooling system needs to be investigated as the key technology area when it comes to process modifications. A caster audit is a systematic and structured approach to determine how an existing secondary cooling system, operational practices and process automation data, impact on quality and productivity. Typical audit contents are: Establishing and benchmarking existing operational and performance data to see where the caster stands with the existing equipment. Diagnosis of the cause of specific processing and equipment problems and solutions to rectify the same.Proposal and plan describing how to achieve the objectives and new specifications, recommending on how to implement process, operational, and maintenance improvements. The paper focuses on the auditing method and its structure. It also shows typical examples of simulations of several actual caster audits followed by the proposals and some process results.Also discussed is how the attentive design of secondary cooling systems, through cooling zone positioning, nozzle layout, nozzle selection and the use of appropriate secondary cooling control systems can provide the caster with the flexibility to maintain optimum casting parameters for each steel grade.