Additional shearing impact on the effectiveness of MSR technology in conditions of billet CCM

Aside from electromagnetic stirring, casting with low superheat and intensive cooling of the strand in the upper range of secondary cooling zone, Mechanical Soft Reduction (MSR) has proved, above all, to be very effective in reducing segregation and axial porosity in continuously cast billet. Implementation of MSR technology in the production of continuously cast billets has a number of features that are due to their square shape. In this case, particularly promising is the use of blocks of segment design, so called pinch-roll segment. The presence in CCM line of MSR block of such design allows to implement a two-stage deformation scheme. The paper proposes a new two-stage scheme of MSR technology realizing the combined deformation on the basis of cobbing in vertical plane and shearing relative displacement of the faces at the first stage, and at the second stage – deformation on the basis of cobbing in vertical plane. This approach additionally helps to correct deformations of the profile cross section, namely the rhomboidity defect. We present the results of a comparative study using physical modeling methods to assess the contribution of additional shear relative displacement of faces in the horizontal plane to the overall efficiency of MSR technology of continuous casting. The use of a flat model in conjunction with the proposed form of deforming rolls and a combination of modeling materials allowed to achieve a good similarity in geometric criterion, as well as in the criterion of stress ratio equivalence arising at the interface of crystallization front. The obtained experimental data helps to develop ideas about the mechanisms of additional positive effect from the application of shear action. In particular, the deformation of metal surface and adjacent layers of the billet in the rolls with a special above-described profiling will improve their quality due to the occurrence of shear deformations intensifying the process of collapse of subcortical bubbles, “healing” of microcracks, etc. In turn, the artificial creation of torque effect in cross section of the billet will contribute to the occurrence of shear deformations in the crystallized “bridges” of axial liquid-solid region of the ingot, thereby intensifying the process of their destruction and improving the quality of the billet’s macrostructure.

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