9th ECCC European Continuous Casting Conference – ECCC 2017

In the objective to improve the internal soundness of the as-cast round format 400mm in ArcelorMittal Ostrava, a strong collaboration has been launched between the team of the steel plant and the R&D centre of Gandrange, specialized in long products. In this framework, a focus has been made on forging grades, which have shown a high sensitivity to the occurrence of central cracks and porosities. In particular, these grades have presented strong variations of in terms of quality characterization by ultrasonic testing. Thus, a long-term acquisition campaign has been carried out on the caster, including records of casting parameters, measurements of product temperature and tracking of quality results. After combination of casting simulations and statistical data analyses, it has been possible to correlate the occurrence of defects to the conditions of cooling and solidification, and to define a set of safe casting conditions. This set has now to be enriched with more production records and quality results, in order to achieve an industrial tool for pre-qualification of as-cast products.