Raw Material Pretreatment
Core Function: Removes harmful impurities such as sulfur and phosphorus from molten iron, providing qualified molten iron for subsequent steelmaking. It also regulates the supply and demand balance between the blast furnace and converter, ensuring stable production.
Key Operational Points: Slag removal must be completed. Molten iron needs to be stored, mixed in composition, and homogenized in temperature to ensure stable subsequent reactions.
Converter Smelting (Core Process)
Core Function: By blowing in high-pressure oxygen, excess carbon and impurities in the molten iron are oxidized and removed. This is a crucial step in controlling the basic composition of molten steel.
Key Operational Points: Strict control of oxygen quantity and gas composition is required to avoid over-oxidation or under-oxidation. Simultaneously, proper furnace lining protection is essential to extend equipment lifespan.
Ladle Refining
Core Function: Further improves steel quality, removes harmful gases and inclusions, and fine-tunes composition and temperature to meet the quality requirements of high-end steel grades. Currently, the mainstream refining furnaces are LF and RH: RH excels at removing impurities and deep decarburization, while LF can complete heating, desulfurization, deoxidation, and alloying.
Key Operational Steps: Stirring ensures uniform composition and temperature, improving reaction efficiency and shortening desulfurization and impurity removal time.
Continuous Casting
Core Function: Continuously casting refined molten steel into qualified steel billets, directly affecting subsequent rolling processes and the final steel quality.
Key Operational Steps: Controlling the cooling and solidification rate ensures uniform solidification of the billet. After straightening and cutting, surface defects must be addressed to prevent them from being carried into the next process.
