 Corus Process Engineering (CPE) has completed the upgrade and reconfiguration of a purely vertical billet plant caster at Corus~{!/~} Teesside Technology Centre (TTC) Pilot Plant. The reconstructed caster, which is of a vertical/bending configuration, enables TTC to offer an extended range of investigative procedures and compliments the recently installed increased melting and refining capacity of the Pilot Plant. The previous vertical billet caster was able to cast 150mm square by 6m long billets from a ladle charge of around 3 tonnes of steel. The new caster is fed from a ladle charged with 7 tonnes of steel and is able to cast a wide range of billet sizes, as well as a mini slab 142mm x 300mm, which is cast through a plate mould. The casting floor of the reconfigured caster is 1.2m higher than the previous floor. The caster has a horizontal run out and storage bed, which enable products to be cast under steady state conditions. This is critical for TTC because it needs to simulate full scale casting production.
CPE designed most of the equipment for the new caster specifically for the job. This included support structures, the mini slab mould (fitted with multi-tapered, ceramic coated copper plates), top zone/bender and strand guides. In addition, to reduce the overall cost of the project, CPE used a considerable amount of redundant equipment from its Stocksbridge and Llanwern plants in the construction of the straighteners (which are designed to apply soft reduction loads), the billet mould assemblies (which incorporate EMS) and mould oscillation equipment.
The mini slab mould, also designed by CPE specifically for the job, is designed to sit on the same oscillation system and within the same mould table as that for the tube mould assemblies. Water cooling is delivered to the four copper plates via a distribution system that connects to the same supply and returns as those for the billet moulds. Furthermore, this is the first time that it has been proposed that such a small size of slab be cast through a plate type mould.
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