Strategy for AHSS Processing - Furnace Upgrade or Find a Completely New Concept

摘要

To produce TRIP, TWIP and Dual Phase grades, a path needs to be taken to bring R&D into industrial production along with furnace layout optimization in order to process those steels and decide whether the existing furnace is to be revamped, or if a completely new concept needs to be developed. To help the customer make this difficult choice, taking any compromises into consideration, EBNER has developed laboratory tools to help the customer optimize their furnace layout. After many samples with different steel compositions and thermal cycles, the results can be reviewed in order to obtain the desired mechanical properties. Various parameters can be adjusted such as heat cycle, cooling rates, hydrogen content, overaging time and reheating after fast cooling. The results obtained from the thermal processing simulators assist EBNER engineers using 3D tools to design the best furnace layout with the right equipment sizing and the right type of facility components. The type of components may include a muffle furnace, a radiant tube heating system, hydrogen sealing with an atmosphere control system, a highly sophisticated HICON cooler or a strip reheating system. All the industrial aspects such as safety, energy consumption, performance and flexibility of the facility components as well as maintenance are evaluated to find the best balance to meet the customer's specifications. This paper will review the path from the given steel composition to a fully implemented system to help the customer make their choice.