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Ferrous Alloys
Published in Zainul Huda, Metallurgy for Physicists and Engineers, 2020
In traditional steelmaking and casting, liquid steel is tapped from a steelmaking furnace (e.g. basic oxygen furnace [BOF], electric arc furnace [EAF], or the like) into an open-topped cylindrical ladle, and then transferred to the casting bay where the steel is cast into either ingots or a final castings (Fruehan, 1998). The ladle is used not only for holding and transporting liquid steel, but also for de-slagging, re-slagging, alloy addition, heating, and the like. In order to ensure that the ladle arrives at the casting bay at the correct temperature, it is important to calculate the effects of different processes on the ladle temperature. During tapping, the steel temperature will decrease by around 60°C. For most alloy additions, each 1,000 kg added to the ladle results in an additional temperature drop of about 6°C. It is necessary to prevent the steel bath temperature falling below the liquidus temperature (i.e. the temperature at which the steel starts to solidify).
Combustion Systems
Published in Charles E. Baukal, Industrial Combustion Pollution and Control, 2003
iron. The raw materials are loaded into the top of a tall thin vertically oriented cylinder. Hot combustion gases generated at the bottom through the combustion of coke flow up through the raw materials which are then heated. The melted final product is tapped out of the bottom. The furnace looks and acts almost like a shaft because of the way the raw materials are fed in through the top and exit at the bottom. A transfer chamber used to move molten metal around in a steel mill is often referred to as a ladle because of its function and appearance. These ladles are preheated using burners before the molten metal is poured into them to prevent the refractory-lined vessels from thermally shocking.
Process-integrated steel ladle monitoring, based on infrared imaging – a robust approach to avoid ladle breakout
Published in Quantitative InfraRed Thermography Journal, 2020
Biswajit Chakraborty, Billol Kumar Sinha
A steel ladle is a huge metal container made of steel and of typical capacity around 100 t–200 t and up and internally lined by refractory lining for transporting molten metal at around 1400°C–1700°C. The typical range of cold side temperature of the ladle shell is around 300°C–400°C. The secondary metallurgical process takes place inside the ladle. The ladle maintenance program is an important event in the operation of a steel plant. Before a ladle is put to operation it is to be inspected for observing shell and refractory lining condition, removal of metal jams, cleaning or changing the nozzle, slide gate plate or purging plug, de-slagging operation, gunning with suitable refractory, etc. The ladle is also required to be stress relieved by uniformly heating in a furnace. The preheating also decreases the heat loss of liquid steel during tapping and holding. The inspected and preheated ladle is used to collect molten steel from the converter and moves towards the continuous casting strand through secondary refining units which may consists of vacuum degasser and ladle furnace.
Simulation-based solution for a dynamic multi-crane-scheduling problem in a steelmaking shop
Published in International Journal of Production Research, 2020
Cranes are core transport equipment in a steelmaking shop and are widely used to circulate the ladle, which is used as a container to carry molten steel, between different processes. A suitable crane-scheduling solution can accelerate the ladle circulation, thereby enhancing the production efficiency. Figure 1 shows the physical layout of a steelmaking shop considered in this study as a case study; the various processes are represented by different icons and are named after their respective functions or corresponding devices. There are five processes involved in a ladle circulation including three production processes and two auxiliary processes: Process 1 (the corresponding device is called BOF) is for the steelmaking and involves loading the molten steel from a BOF into the ladle. Process 2 (refining/RF, involving devices called LF, RH and CAS) involves refining the molten steel and is conducted in the ladle. Process 3 (the corresponding device is called CC) is the continuous casting of molten steel into steel blanks – in this process, the full ladle, placed at the discharging position of the ladle turret, discharges the molten steel until it is empty; this empty ladle and the next full ladle in the standby position switch positions as the ladle turret rotates 180°. Processes 4 (deslagging/DS) and 5 (hot maintaining/HM) are auxiliary processes in which the ladles are cleaned and maintained, respectively. It is notable that each ladle circulation has its own path. Figure 1 shows an example of a ladle circulation path, in which the ladle is full in Steps through and empty in Steps through .