Casting of steel in special sizes

Nucor Corporation has selected SMS group for the supply of a singlestrand caster for ultra-wide and thick slabs. Designed for an annual capacity of 1.45 million tons (1.6 million short tons), it will be a core element of the production chain of the Nucor’s new plate mill facility in Brandenburg, Kentucky, U.S.A. The new casting machine will be one of the largest casters worldwide.

”SMS group and Nucor make a good team, and the caster will be essential to the success of our new plate mill facility,” said Johnny Jacobs, Vice President and General Manager of Nucor Brandenburg.

The caster will produce slabs of 8 to 12 inch (200 to 305 millimeter) thickness up to 124 inch (3,150 millimeter) width. Slab lengths vary from 104 to 600 inch (2,642 to 15,240 millimeter). To meet Nucor’s challenging project objectives, several special technological features will be incorporated into the new vertical bending caster. These include robotic applications on the casting platform and an HD mold with fiber optics and electromagnetic stirring. In addition, a customized roller apron, a quenching unit and a secondary cutting line will also be incorporated.  Various X-Pact® technological packages like Process Guidance, Solid Control, Tech Assist with Liquid Core Reduction® and Dynamic Soft Reduction®, integrated in the SMS Electric & Automation system will support the caster performance. An integration test with virtual 3D production and active participation by Nucor personnel will take place in the SMS test field.

Source and photo: SMS group