April 2006 — Vallourec & Mannesmann Tubes (V&M) France recently awarded Danieli Centro Met an order for a FastCastTM bloom caster to be installed at the Saint Saulve steelmaking plant.
The 4-strand 12-meter radius continuous caster will be designed to cast 800,000 tonne/year of special steel round blooms in sections from 180- to 325-mm diameter in carbon grades for special applications, boron, spring, bearing and free-cutting grades, stainless steel and microalloyed qualities for final production of seamless pipes.
The new caster will be installed in the existing meltshop, which currently includes a 90-tonne Danieli EAF, ladle furnace, slag rake station, Danieli twin-tank VOD unit and a 4-strand 20-meter-high rotary vertical machine that V&M installed in 1974.
The new caster will be equipped with the latest technology available in conticasting of special steels, including electromechanical stopper rods, tundish with one-meter steel level for excellent inclusion flotation, Danieli Rotelec mould EMS, hydraulic oscillators, air-mist secondary cooling, finishing end with oxy-torches, sample cutting, bloom deburring and marking machines.
Assuming that V&M plant operation is based on one section change per day, the specially designed retractable-type hydraulic oscillating tables will enable substantial time saving in mould replacement, while the rigid dummy bar parking device will be specifically designed to shorten re-stranding time.
A dedicated fume treatment plant, also supplied by Danieli, will treat fumes collected from the caster operator area on casting floor (exhaust fumes from mould and tundish) and from the oxy-cutting area, in particular during stainless steels production.
The machine will be equipped with Danieli Automation Level 1 and Level 2 automation systems. The system will be capable of real-time calculation of the steel chemical composition in the tundish and in the moulds as well as the best conditions for new ladle opening. The automation package also includes a mPMD (mould Powder Measuring Device); ELTM (dynamic spray control based on Element LifeTime Model); and QUART (Quality Assessment in Real Time).
Startup of the new conticaster is planned for the end of October 2007.
Vallourec & Mannesmann Tubes (V&M) France is an international leader in the production of seamless hot-rolled tubes for a wide range of applications.