9th ECCC European Continuous Casting Conference – ECCC 2017

Today’s and future steel industry challenges demand sustainability for the production of long products and aims for lowest energy consumption. Further the trend for the installation of small production units utilizing resources from a local area to serve the rolled products in local markets needs a very efficient process directly linking casting and rolling process. Ideally, this process includes a scrap preheating EAF, a high speed casting machine and a directly linked rolling mill. The CMT® (Continuous Minimill Technology) process developed by the SMS group is an inline endless casting and rolling process featuring a high casting speed machine directly feeding the rolling mill. The traditional fossile fuel fired re-heating furnace is eliminated and replaced by a compact on line induction heater for temperature equalization before the rolling process. This paper will highlight various concepts for different range of production, ranging from single to multiple strand concepts, which can be operated via the CMT process. The differences in casting technology between conventional rebar production and CMT casting are explained. As the CMT concepts required high casting speeds special attention must be paid to mould design (SMS Concast INVEX® technology) and strand guidance and secondary cooling. Integrated automation system managing all production process aspects from the scrap yard logistics to the mill finishing area as well as covering maintenance of the plant is also a key element to the efficient and cost effective production of re-bar. The in-line process casting and rolling process requires a integrated level 1 and level 2 concepts. The combination of energy efficient scrap melting together with direct rolling concept drastically reduce the overall energy consumption and consequently the emission of greenhouse gases increasing the environmental sustainability of minimills.