Chinese steel producer Tangshan Donghua placed an order with Primetals Technologies to supply a unique 3-strand continuous slab caster for its plant in Tangshan, Hebei province, China. Established in 2009, Tangshan Donghua’s range of expertise covers sintering, ironmaking, steelmaking, as well as bar and high-end wire rod rolling.
Unique design
This caster is the first ever 3-strand slab casting solution. With a higher capacity compared to a 2-strand slab caster and requiring less space compared to the installation of another casting machine, the 3-strand slab caster will feature the latest casting technology. Straight cassette-type Smart Molds ensure optimized primary solidification of the strand. The DynaWidth mold-width adjustment system is used for flexible and fast slab-width changes. The DynaFlex hydraulic oscillator flexibly adjusts the mold-oscillation parameters, resulting in improved strand-surface quality of the slabs. The secondary cooling features DynaJet spray cooling with a center/margin setting for an even more precise cooling of the slab edges, reducing corner cracks when casting advanced steel grades.
Sophisticated casting automation solutions
In addition, the 3-strand caster will be delivered with a sophisticated automation package. DynaPhase, Dynacs 3D, and DynaGap Soft Reduction are dynamic secondary cooling and soft-reduction packages that significantly contribute to quality improvements during the continuous casting process. These packages consider thermodynamic effects such as shrinkage and phase transitions and adjust to maintain consistency. LevCon is a system for automatic mold-level control, with “autostart” casting functions and auto-adaptive dynamic bulging compensation keeps operations running smoothly. Mold Expert helps to prevent caster-mold breakouts and digitally monitors the mold in real time.
