BMBF Project Strip Casting

Process reduction and CO2 saving in the steel strip production through industrialization of the strip casting technology

Com­pared to con­ti­nuous cas­ting, the spe­ci­fic sur­face area pro­du­ced per ton­ne of steel is many times grea­ter. This is due to the small cross-sec­tion­al area of the cast pro­duct during strip cas­ting. To ensu­re that the strip qua­li­ty meets the requi­re­ments in this pro­cess, the con­di­ti­on of the cas­ting rol­ler sur­face is decisi­ve. During the cas­ting pro­cess, the rolls are expo­sed to high­ly fluc­tua­ting mecha­ni­cal and ther­mal loads. This can lead to local­ly vary­ing inten­si­ve wear of the rol­ler coa­ting. The­se defects are decisi­ve for the ser­vice life of the rolls.

Opti­mi­zing the dis­tri­bu­ti­on of the melt bet­ween the cas­ting rol­lers is a start­ing point for redu­cing wear. Within the frame­work of this pro­ject, nume­ri­cal and phy­si­cal simu­la­ti­ons were car­ri­ed out at the IOB.

The phy­si­cal inves­ti­ga­ti­ons were car­ri­ed out on a water model on an indus­tri­al sca­le. The flow was inves­ti­ga­ted among others by Par­tic­le Image Velo­ci­me­try. The sec­tion pla­ne to be inves­ti­ga­ted is illu­mi­na­ted with the aid of a laser and the move­ment of par­tic­les is recor­ded. The­se par­tic­les are added to the water befo­re the start of the expe­ri­ment and fol­low the flow as slip-free as pos­si­ble. Based on the­se data the velo­ci­ties in the mea­su­ring pla­ne can be calculated.

The ther­mal influen­ces of the flow can­not be inves­ti­ga­ted in the water model. Nume­ri­cal simu­la­ti­ons were car­ri­ed out for this pur­po­se, taking into account the soli­di­fi­ca­ti­on of the melt. In this way it is pos­si­ble to inves­ti­ga­te the rela­ti­onships bet­ween the flow and the tem­pe­ra­tu­re distribution.

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The pro­ject was fun­ded by the Fede­ral Minis­try of Edu­ca­ti­on and Rese­arch (BMBF) under the num­ber 01 LS 1001 B.