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3 authors, including:
Christian Schrade
Zulfiadi Zulhan
Tenova
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C. Schrade, Tenova Metals Deutschland GmbH, Am Lichtbogen 29, 45141, Essen, Germany, Phone +49 201 1891
723, Fax: +49 201 1891 470, Email : christian.schrade@tenova.com
Summary
In ULC (ultra low carbon) - electric steel grade which is well known as NGO (non-grain oriented) silicon steel grade, the
presence of sulfur may increase magnetic hysteresis loss and suppress the grain growth. Therefore, the sulfur content
in this steel grade should be kept less than 0.005% or even less than 0.002%. Steel desulfurization during RH
treatment by the addition of Ca-based fluxes through a powder injection lance as well as through an alloying vacuum
hopper system was investigated by researchers in the 1990s. However due to the reduction of the RH vacuum vessel
refractory service life, particularly in snorkel and bottom part of RH vessel, this technique was not a common practice in
the steel industry. However, for non-grain oriented (NGO) silicon steel grades, which have the carbon and sulfur
content requirements of less than 30 ppm and 20 ppm, respectively, deep desulfurization is accomplished directly after
decarburization and alloying addition during the RH vacuum treatment. To calculate the sulfur content during and after
powder blowing of the RH vacuum process, a kinetic model of desulfurization, introduced previously by other
researchers, was improved and tested. The model is integrated in the Level 2 RH Process Automation system.
Industrial and practical results from plant operation of the 300t RH Plant of Maanshan ISCO, China are highlighted and
compared with the theoretical considerations.
Key Words
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Introduction
The presence of sulfur in the steel has a strong
impact on the steel quality. The efforts to remove and
control sulfur content in steel products are started at
the ironmaking stage, hot metal pretreatment,
primary steelmaking and ladle metallurgy by top slag
reaction as well as by powder injection.
Desulfurization under a vacuum environment by
means of vacuum tank degassing (VTD) was
considered to be more effective due to intense mixing
and contact between molten steel and slag.
Desulfurization of molten steel under vacuum during
the RH-treatment was introduced by Okada et al [1],
in order to reduce sulfur content from 30 ppm to less
than 5 ppm by powder blowing of a CaO-CaF2 flux.
Knoop and Tiekink [2] reported test results of
desulfurization performance during RH treatment by
the addition of lime and pre-molten calcium-aluminate
flux via the vacuum hopper system with a sulfur
reduction from 50 ppm to approximately 30 ppm.
The installation of a powder injection lance on a RH
plant for dephosphorization and decarburization to
produce ULC steel grade was reported by Poucke et
al [3]. Iron oxide was blown for the purpose of
decarburization and lime is blown to reduce the
phosphor content of the liquid steel. In addition, the
lance was also used for desulfurization trials by
blowing of CaO-CaF2 or CaO-Al2O3 fluxes [4]. It was
observed that utilization of a CaO-CaF2 flux boosts
dramatically the wear of RH vessel refractories.
Consequently, it was decided to use pre-molten CaOAl2O3 fluxes for further desulfurization trials.
Since these trials, desulfurization during RH
treatment could not be established as a common
practice in the steel production process, mainly due
to the heavy wear of RH snorkel and inner vessel
refractories. However, regarding the production of nongrain oriented (NGO) silicon steel grades containing
ultra-low carbon and ultra-low sulfur levels there are
only few alternatives.
Due to contrary metallurgical mechanisms for
decarburization and desulfurization, it is not a good
practice to kill the steel by aluminum addition directly
after BOF / EAF tapping in order to provide a
reductive condition for desulfurization. Subsequently
oxygen injection during RH treatment must follow in
order to change the condition from reducing to
oxidizing for decarburization purposes. Instead, the
mechanism to produce NGO steel grade will be vice
versa: Desulfurization of the liquid steel will be
performed after decarburization and alloying addition
of the RH vacuum treatment.
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Sf = So
(1)
(2)
(3)
Where Lsm = Ls s / f
Figure 1 shows the theoretical calculation of the
sulfur content during powder blowing, with an initial
sulfur content of 60 ppm. The final sulfur content is
dependent on the amount of powder blown. However,
a sulfur content of less than 20 ppm is difficult to
achieve starting from an initial level of 60 ppm. Based
on the model calculations, final sulfur content of less
than 20 ppm can only be achieved when the initial
level is less than 40 ppm, illustrated in Figure 2 and
3, respectively.
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Conclusion
The production of NGO silicon steel grades, having
the requirement of ultra low carbon and ultra low
sulfur levels, deep decarburization as well as deep
desulfurization can be performed by the RH process.
A kinetic desulfurization model was developed in
order predict the sulfur contents during the process.
Five heat data for NGO steel production were
analyzed for fine tuning of the introduced/proposed
kinetic desulfurization model. It shows that the
proposed kinetic model can be used to predict sulfur
content during powder blowing as well as the final
sulfur content in the molten steel. This kinetic model
was implemented in Level 2 RH Process automation
system.
Abbreviations
dp
k
Ls
Q
S
Se
Sf
So
St
t
Wf
Ws
f
s
References
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