Steel making

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 Use of steel
• Immense and varied use

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 Desirable properties

• Low cost and availability

• 25% energy required compared to Al
• Weldable
• Suitable machinability
• Hard, tough and wear resistant
• Corrosion resistant
• Heat resistant and resistance to deformation at high temperatures.
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World Wide steel production

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 Purpose of steel making

• Pig iron usually contains 3-4% of carbon, 2-4% of silicon, 1-2% of

manganese and 1-1.2% of phosphorous.
• which makes it very brittle and not useful directly as a material except for
limited applications
• Primary Steel making is about refining pig iron to reduce these impurity
amounts
Carbon 0.16-0.18%
• Typical MS composition Silicon 0.40% max
Manganese 0.70-0.90%
Sulphur 0.040% Max
Phosphorus 0.040% Max
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Steel Production-Path

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 Refining reactions
1. [Fe] + [O] = (FeO)

2. [C] + [O] = {CO}

[] -Liquid
{} –Gas
3. [Si] + 2 [O] = (SiO2) () -Slags

4. [Mn] + [O] = (MnO)

5. 2[P] + 5[O] = (P2O5)

6. [FeS/MnS] + (CaO) = (CaS) + (FeO/MnO)

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 Steel making processes

• Bessemer process
• Open hearth process
• LD process
• Electric process

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 Bessemer and open hearth furnace

Open hearth Process

Bessemer Process
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LD converter(Linz and Donawitz)

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Electric arc furnace

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The LD Process of Steel Making

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Construction:
• LD converter is a welded construction of non-ageing steel
plates (8mm), the height of the vessel varies from 7-10m.

• L.D converter has a basic lining of magnesite bricks

(permanent lining) and Dolomite bricks (working lining).

• Oxygen lance (8-10m & 20-25cm dia) is made of concentric

steel tubes and the tip of the lance is made with Copper.

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 Why basic lining?

• The refining of the impurities specially P and S require the slag to be basic in
nature.
• If the slag is not basic, these elements cannot be kept in the slag and revert
back into the melt
• Thus most modern steel refining operations utilize a basic process, i.e create a
basic slag, by adding fluxes appropriately
• If the refractory lining of the furnace is not basic as well then the slag and
lining will react with each other, causing unacceptable lining wear

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Steps involved in LD process:

1. Charging
2. Blowing
3. Sampling
4. Tapping
5. Slag off
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1. Charging:
i) Scrap:
 Home scrap generated in the plant is charged.
 It acts as a coolant & utilizes the excess heat energy generated
during refining.
 LD process can take upto 25% of the metal charge as scrap.
 Any more scarp, if charged, cannot be melted and heated to the
desired temperature because of insufficient heat generation

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i) Hot Metal (75-90%):
A minimum amount of scrap has to be charged. Otherwise the
temperature will get uncontrollably high.
The analysis of iron required to use in LD process as follows:

C 4.10 - 4.30%

Si 0.50 – 0.85%

Mn 0.50 – 0.80%

S 0.02 – 0.03%

P 0.10 – 0.25%
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 iii) Fluxes:
Lime (95+%CaO) and dolomite (58%CaO, 39%MgO) are the
two primary fluxes.

iv) Coolants:

Limestone, scrap, iron ore, and sponge iron are all potential
coolants that can be added to a heat that has been overblown
and is excessively hot.

v) Oxygen:

99.5% of pure oxygen is used as refining agent.

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2.Blowing:
 After charging, the vessel is rotated to
vertical position, lance is lowered to
blowing position and O2 is turned on.
 Oxygen blows at a pressure of 150 psi .
which increases temperature (16000C) (
at hot spot around 25000C)and burns off
impurities.
 The blow continues for about 18
minutes.
 Oxygen consumption: 50-60 Nm3/t of
steel.
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2.Blowing:

• Emulsion results from vigorous

evolution of CO
• This accelerates the refining
process greatly, as the surface
area of the metal exposed is
increased many folds

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3.Sampling:
• Slag and metal samples are taken out for analysis.
• Temperature of the bath is measured by immersion of
thermocouple.

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4.Tapping:
• If the analysis & tapping temperature are in the required range,
then the molten steel is tapped in the laddle.
• Deoxidizers and alloying additions are made in the laddle.
• Tap-to-tap time is 40 – 50 min.

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 De-oxidation of Converter Steel

• De-oxidation is the final process in which dissolved oxygen in

the steel is removed.
• The de-oxidizers i.e. Al, Fe-Si and Fe-Mn are added to the steel,
which combines with dissolved oxygen and forms their oxides.

FeO + Al Fe + Al2O3
FeO + Fe-Si Fe + SiO2
FeO + Fe-Mn Fe + MnO
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5.Slag off:
• After tapping steel into the ladle, and turning the vessel upside
down and tapping the remaining slag into the "slag pot“.

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Sequence of elimination of impurities

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 Advantages of LD converter

• L-D process is about ten times faster than the open hearth process.

• Instead of air pure oxygen is used, this eliminates the harmful effects of
nitrogen.

• It produces steel with low S & P content from raw materials of ordinary
quality.

• It does not use an external source of heat or fuel.

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 Disadvantages of LD converter

• The major disadvantage of L-D process is that the charge must

include a considerable quantity of molten pig, thus limiting the
amount of scrap that can be used.

• Steel wastage due to splashes by oxygen lancing is more.

• Insufficient depth of penetration of O2, leads to thermal
gradient in the bath.

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 EAF

• Ref : http://www.steel.org/making-steel/how-its-made/processes/processes-
info/electric-arc-furnace-steelmaking.aspx
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 Furnace Construction

• Outer steel shell

• Inner lining of firebricks upto slag line, silica bricks in roof
• Three graphite electrodes
• Each can weigh upto 40 tons and be upto 1-2 stories tall
• Current furnaces can reach sizes of upto 400 tons

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 Steps of operation

• Furnace charging
• Melting
• Refining
• De-slagging
• Tapping
Modern operations aim for a tap-to-tap time of less than 60
minutes.

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 Charging

• The roof and electrodes are raised and are swung to the side of the furnace to
allow the scrap charging crane to move a full bucket of scrap into place over
the furnace
• The scarp is charged, the roof swung back into position and electrodes are
lowered.
• Charging may be done two or three times in total

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 Melting

• Melting is the heart of the operation

• Low power arc is struck at first so as to not damage the roof
• After some molten metal forms the electrodes can ‘bore-in’ and a high voltage
maximum power arc can be struck
• Once enough scrap has melted 2nd charging can commence
• After all charges have been melted flat-bath conditions are achieved and
refining can commence

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 Refining

• Oxygen lance is used to blow oxygen for refining purposes just like LD
• C,Si and Mn can be removed sufficiently without problem
• P and S on the other hand require more control
• It has not been discussed previously but, the removal condition for P and S
are opposite to each other

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 Removing P and S (applicable to any
steelmaking process)
• P removal is favored by low slag temperature, high basicity and high FeO content
(oxidizing environment)
P2O5 + 3FeO  (FeO)3.P2O5
(FeO)3.P2O5 + 3CaO  (CaO)3P2O5 + 3FeO
• S removal is facilitated by a basic slag (which matches with P removal) and
reducing atmosphere (low FeO content – opposite to P removal!)
FeS + CaO  FeO + CaS
• So if aiming to remove P, bath oxidation level must be high which would then not
make it possible to remove S!
• So how can both be removed effectively?

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 The Solution

• P is separated into the slag as early into the melting stage as possible where
the temperature is still low
• The highly oxidizing slag has to be removed before de-oxidation may be
carried out because otherwise P will revert back into melt.
• So this P-rich slag is removed first and then another reducing slag may be
setup to remove S in the furnace itself or in the ladle after tapping.

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 De-Slagging and Tapping

• Similar to LD process
• Only difference is, as discussed just now, de-slagging may be done more than
once

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 Advantages and disadvantages
• Advantages
• Great flexibility – cold charge or hot metal
• Heat available as desired, refining can be carried out as pleased
• Minimum impurities introduced because of clean energy
• Furnace atmosphere is controllable to a high degree making it ideal for alloy steel
making
• Disadvantages
• High capital cost
• Not suitable for places where electrical energy is not cheap
• Can cause problems for the electric grid

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Steel making route in Bangladesh

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