Aug. 13, 2013 - Siemens Metals Technologies put a 300 tonne twin ladle furnace into operation for ArcelorMittal Bremen GmbH in Bremen.
The plant replaces the 2 previous conditioning stands used for liquid steel treatment and substantially cuts the cost of steel treatment.
ArcelorMittal Bremen GmbH is a flat steel manufacturer and produces high-quality steel goods, mainly for the automotive and construction industries, via the integrated blast furnace-converter route. It also produces higher-alloyed steel grades, such as line-pipe steel grades. The twin ladle furnace was installed directly downstream of the LD converter in the Bremen steel works, positioned so as to ensure optimum logistic links to other parts of the plant and reduce crane movements to a minimum.
In future, the ladle furnace will be used to treat a large proportion of the melts some 3.5 million metric tonne of crude steel per year. Its main task is to heat the melt, and it achieves a heating rate of 4 °C per minute over a 30-minute period.
A Simelt AC electrode control system ensures perfect control of the electrodes. The tapping temperature at the LD converter can be lowered by about 30 °C, which reduces the consumption of refractory material in the converter.
In this way, the ladle furnace increases the efficiency of the ladle metallurgy and reduces operating costs. The ladle furnace can also handle fine alloying work and injection processes, which previously took place in the conditioning stands. The equipment supplied for this purpose included two six track wire feeding machines.
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