Directions of development of production of small- size billets for long products

The aim of the work is to study the technological features of the transfer of metallurgical enterprises to the production of small-size and wire metal products from continuously cast billets. The main parameters of the rolling technology are considered: the size of the billet, the choice of the location of the continuous casting machine, the transfer scheme of continuously cast billets to small- size and wire mills. It is shown that when using a continuously cast square billet with a size of 130x130 mm and 150x150 mm, direct combination of a continuous casting machine with a rolling mill is almost impossible due to the difference in the speed of continuous casting and the roughing group of the mill. The performed calculations show that the scheme of cutting the billets and combining with the intermediate furnace is technologically feasible, however, further heating of the billets leads to significant energy losses. It has been established that an effective option for combining the continuous casting machine with a rolling mill is to use a complex of equipment with a furnace-thermostat for a billets 120 m long. This flowchart reduces the energy consumption for heating the billets by at least 53%. The proposed technology of combining the continuous casting machine with a rolling mill will provide metal savings by reducing the thickness of the scale to 0.4-0.73 mm (an average of 1.1% of the mass of the billet), improve its quality by reducing the depth of the decarburized layer from 1.1 mm to 0.3 mm. The technology provides for the transportation of liquid steel in the ladle from the steel-smelting shop, casting on the continuous casting machine, identification of defects in the billets in a hot condition, supply of the billets with a temperature of 8500С to high-temperature furnaces for heating and subsequent rolling.