Trends in Technologies for the Production of Quality Steels

Abstract

More than 130 documents and reports were delivered over the four days of the Congress, and the authors of the best of them were presented with commemorative gifts. A tour of the factory was also included in the program that was prepared for each section of the Congress. The participants benefited from fruitful exchanges on the latest advances in their field, related their own professional experiences, and took part in a public discussion of the most important problems. All this helped map out the next step in finding ways to grow the scientific-technical and industrial base of the metallurgical industry and identify current trends among metallurgical companies in their respective areas of specialization.General Director of the Severskii Pipe Plant M. V. Zuev and Assistant General Director and Chief Engineer of the United Metallurgical Company A. A. Klachkov presented some interesting documents at the plenary session of the Congress. They gave an overview of the systematic growth and technical modernization of the steelmaking facilities at the plant and the company as a whole. One of the major changes is the conversion from open-hearth (OH) to electric steelmaking, which stimulated high-level discussions on various topics that are important to the steelmaking sector.The steady increase in steel consumption in the industrially developed nations and the persistent efforts that have been made to reduce expenditures on technologies, operating personnel, auxiliary staff, and equipment repairs while improving the productivity and universality of integrated steelmaking and casting methods were the main factors that led to the eventual phase-out of OH steel production in favor of electric steelmaking.The classic metallurgical technologies, based on lengthy diffusion-based processes which take place at phase boundaries in slag-metal and metal-refractory-lining systems and systems comprised of condensed and gaseous media (in accordance with the laws of heat and mass transfer), were developed during a period dominated by the production of steel in OH furnaces and "slow" arc furnaces employing the traditional technology: melting of the charge followed by the oxidizing, reducing, and finishing periods of the heat. Technologies for conducting the ore boil and the oxygen boil were also developed in order to make this approach a success, and they made it possible to thoroughly refine metallic melts in order to rid them of nonmetallic and gaseous inclusions. Other technologies were invented to homogenize melts. Special slags and methods of using them were created (including slags for the thorough dephosphorization and desulfurization of metal), the theoretical foundations for these innovations were established, and their practical use was validated.It became necessary to invent and substantiate the practical use of new procedures for the out-of-furnace (secondary) treatment of steel after electric steelmaking shops' adoption of end-to-end converter-type technologies. In these methods, the electric-arc furnace is used only to melt ...