Advanced Tundish Metallurgy and Clean Steel Technology—Second Edition

A special issue of Metals (ISSN 2075-4701). This special issue belongs to the section "Extractive Metallurgy".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 July 2025 | Viewed by 4954

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Department of Metallurgy, Instituto Politécnico Nacional-ESIQIE, Ciudad de México 07738, Mexico
Interests: turbulent flows; CFD; steelmaking and continuous casting; kinetics of metallurgical processes
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Guest Editor
Department of Metallurgy and Metals Technology, Czestochowa University of Technology, Czestochowa, Poland
Interests: iron and steel extractive metallurgy; continuous casting; tundish metallurgy; physical and numerical modelling
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Tundish has been widely used in the continuous casting of steel, aluminum, and copper. In the early 1980s, the concept of tundish metallurgy was put forward by Heaslip and McLean. Forty years since then, tundish metallurgy has developed with the evolution and demand of continuous casting as well as clean steel production. Extensive physical and mathematical model studies on tundish have been carried out. An even larger tundish volume, long refractory service life, stable performance for high-speed casting, uniform temperature control by heating technologies, and flexible flow control for casting speed adjustment are new demands and technologies for tundish. Clean steel production is a systematic and complicated project which occurs throughout the whole steel production process. Raw material (ferroalloys), secondary refining, tundish, and continuous casting are all key issues which need to be addressed in clean steel production.

In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include, but are not limited to, the following: tundish metallurgy, secondary refining, continuous casting, clean steel technologies, refractories, converter and electric arc furnace steelmaking, and metallurgical equipment development. We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Chao Chen
Prof. Dr. Rodolfo Morales
Dr. Adam Cwudziński
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • tundish
  • clean steel
  • inclusions
  • ladle refining
  • continuous casting
  • steelmaking
  • refractory
  • physical modeling
  • CFD

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Related Special Issue

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

13 pages, 27460 KiB  
Article
Comparative Study of Heat Transfer Simulation and Effects of Different Scrap Steel Preheating Methods
by Pengcheng Xiao, Yuxin Jin, Liguang Zhu, Chao Wang and Rong Zhu
Metals 2024, 14(8), 913; https://doi.org/10.3390/met14080913 - 12 Aug 2024
Viewed by 883
Abstract
The materials charged into a converter comprise molten iron and scrap steel. Adjusting the ratio by increasing scrap steel and decreasing molten iron is a steelmaking raw material strategy designed specifically for China’s unique circumstances, with the goal of lowering carbon emissions. To [...] Read more.
The materials charged into a converter comprise molten iron and scrap steel. Adjusting the ratio by increasing scrap steel and decreasing molten iron is a steelmaking raw material strategy designed specifically for China’s unique circumstances, with the goal of lowering carbon emissions. To maintain the converter tapping temperature, scrap must be preheated to provide additional heat. Current scrap preheating predominantly utilizes horizontal tunnel furnaces, resulting in high energy consumption and low efficiency. To address these issues, a three-stage shaft furnace for scrap preheating was designed, and Fluent software was used to compare and study the preheating efficiency of the new three-stage furnace against the traditional horizontal furnace under various operational conditions. Initially, a three-dimensional transient multi-field coupling model was developed for two scrap preheating scenarios, examining the effects of both furnaces on scrap surface and core temperatures across varying preheating durations and gas velocities. Simulation results indicate that, under identical gas heat consumption conditions, scrap achieves markedly higher final temperatures in the shaft furnace compared to the horizontal furnace, with scrap surface and core temperatures increasing notably with extended preheating times and higher gas velocities, albeit with a gradual decrease in heating rate as the scrap temperature rises. At a gas velocity of 9 m/s and a preheating time of 600 s, the shaft furnace achieves the highest waste heat utilization rate for scrap, with scrap averaging 325 °C higher than in the horizontal furnace, absorbing an additional 202 MJ of heat per ton. In the horizontal preheating furnace, scrap steel exhibits a heat absorption efficiency of 35%, whereas in the vertical furnace, this efficiency increases notably to 63%. In the vertical furnace, the waste heat recovery rate of scrap steel reaches 57%. Full article
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12 pages, 4355 KiB  
Article
Research on Magnesium Reduction Slag for Dephosphorization of Low-Silicon Hot Metal in Steelmaking Process
by Ming Lv, Kun Xie, Kui Xue and Zhaohui Zhang
Metals 2022, 12(10), 1617; https://doi.org/10.3390/met12101617 - 27 Sep 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1558
Abstract
The melting temperature and viscosity of magnesium reduction slag were calculated by using Factsage thermodynamic software. The composition range of the magnesium-slag-based dephosphorizing agent was analyzed by drawing a multiphase diagram of the slag system. The Box–Behnken high-temperature dephosphorization experiment was designed to [...] Read more.
The melting temperature and viscosity of magnesium reduction slag were calculated by using Factsage thermodynamic software. The composition range of the magnesium-slag-based dephosphorizing agent was analyzed by drawing a multiphase diagram of the slag system. The Box–Behnken high-temperature dephosphorization experiment was designed to study the effect of different composition of magnesium-slag-based dephosphorizers on the dephosphorization rate of the steelmaking process. The results show that magnesium slag can be used as a slag-forming agent for smelting low-silicon hot metal to promote slagging, and the effect of each factor on the phosphorus removal rate is ranked, and the results are ω(Fe2O3) > basicity > ω(Al2O3): ω(Al2O3) has no significant effect on the rate of phosphorus removal. When the basicity was 2.8, ω(Fe2O3) was 25.94%, ω(Al2O3) was 6.73%, and ω(MgO) was 6%, the dephosphorization rate reached a maximum of 96.7%, and the error was experimentally verified to be 2.6% from the predicted value, indicating that the model can be optimized to determine the best magnesium-slag-based dephosphorization agent and has a good prediction of dephosphorization effect. Full article
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12 pages, 3332 KiB  
Article
Evolution of Non-Metallic Inclusions in 27SiMn Steel
by Xinliang Lu, Zhaohui Zhang, Ming Lv, Xintao Li, Baomin Song and Ming Fang
Metals 2022, 12(5), 718; https://doi.org/10.3390/met12050718 - 23 Apr 2022
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 1900
Abstract
To study the evolution of non-metallic inclusions in 27SiMn steel, the 27SiMn steel produced using the LD-LF-CCM process was sampled in various stages in a steel factory. The evolutionary behavior of inclusion in various processes was systematically analyzed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM-EDS), [...] Read more.
To study the evolution of non-metallic inclusions in 27SiMn steel, the 27SiMn steel produced using the LD-LF-CCM process was sampled in various stages in a steel factory. The evolutionary behavior of inclusion in various processes was systematically analyzed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM-EDS), and the total oxygen content and nitrogen content in 27SiMn steel were measured at various production steps. On the basis of the calcium treatment for 27SiMn steel, the equilibrium reactions for Ca-Al were calculated according to the thermodynamic equilibrium model. The results showed that the types of inclusions at the start of LF stations are mainly Al2O3-FeO and MnS-Al2O3. Before calcium treatment, the inclusions are mostly calcium aluminate and CaO-MgO-Al2O3. Compared with the process after soft blowing, the number density of inclusions in tundish increased by 77.88%, possibly due to secondary oxidation. From the soft blowing process to the continuous casting round billet, the inclusions translate into spherical CaO-MgO-Al2O3-SiO2, and a large number of CaS were observed. One part of the CaS precipitated separately, the other part was semi-wrapped with the composite inclusions. At the same time, calcium treatment increases the number density, mean diameter, and the area fraction of inclusions. The mass fraction of T.O. (total oxygen content) increased significantly after soft blowing, and the N content increased greatly from station to tundish. The change trend of N content in steel was basically consistent with that of T.O. content. It was necessary to prevent the secondary oxidation of molten steel during calcium treatment and the casting process. When the liquidus temperature of liquid steel is 1873 K, w[Al] = 0.022%, and w[Ca] in steel is controlled between 1.085 × 10−6 and 4.986 × 10−6, the Al2O3 inclusion degeneration effect is good. Full article
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