Both casters produce slabs that are 2 inches thick at widths of 46.3-62.8 inches. Production on A caster peaked in January at more than 105,000 tons. Within the first four months of the startup of A caster, SDI operators noticed some edge cracking on the slabs. The steelmaker also had more breakouts than it wanted. The steelmaker also increased the number of grades it could produce to 40 from two.
Breakouts now occur at the facility less than one percent of the time.
SDI wanted to learn more about its mold powders to ensure that certain combinations of powders weren't causing a disproportionate number of breakouts. Though SDI obviously wanted to reduce its breakouts, the company didn't want to slow its casting speed. Because the quality of steel produced was excellent, SDI wanted to improve its use of the mold powders it already had rather than to change types, Blevins says. The steelmaker experimented with four types of mold flux. SDI found a strong correlation between the type and amount of flux consumption and heat transfer.