Analysis techniques of the spatial distribution of secondary gas emissions in the surface layers of the atmosphere of the outer zone of the steel industry influence have been proposed. Application of the method of continuous source of secondary emissions to the data from JSC “MMK” for 2013 allowed calculating the formation of the secondary emission (sulfuric acid) concentration field in the aerial environment of the geographical region, where the plant is located. Maps of the sulfuric acid distribution for two months (July and September), which have differences in the wind rose, were plotted. The position of the secondary emission concentration maximum for these two variants was determined.

The behavior of building steel of the grade St3 was investigated in conditions of short-term heatings in a range of temperatures 450 – 650 °С and a short-term resource (up to 2 hours) in the area of initial stress not above a yield strength. It was revealed, that in these conditions initial ferrite + pearlite structure of steel has suffi cient stability and recrystallization is not observed. It is shown, that at test temperature of 450 °С and levels of stress ~ 0,8 from a yield strength at 20 °С time before fracture can make from hours up to days for the steel St3. The fracture more than 0,8 at levels of stress at temperature of 650 °С starts in several minutes. The calculated energy of activation of 310,8 – 387,8 kJ/mole of the creep processes of St3 steel can be correlated to the activation energy of α-iron self-diff usion.

Density ρ and electrical conductivity in some synthetic slag melts intended for refi nement of steel in the unit a ladle-furnace are measured at temperature range of 1430 – 1645 °C. The maximum pressure in a gas (Ar) bubble and the volt-ampere double-electrodes on alternating current with a frequency of 2 kHz and 5 kHz methods were used respectively. The specifi c conductivity æ and also coeffi - cients of volume expansion β, actual molar volumes VM and relative excess molar volumes δVM at 1600 °C were calculated on the basis of the received results. Temperature dependence of æ was approximated by Arrhenius′s equation. The activation energy of conductivity Eæ and preexponentional multiplier æ0 were also calculated. The dependences of the measured characteristics of the slag melts were defi ned from extent of partial replacement N of Al2O3 and SiO2 in slag charge by Na2O. With the growth of N the sizes of ρ, δVM , Eæ and æ0 monotonously decrease, but æ increases; dependence of β from N has more complex character. Dependence β and δVM values from N was discussed from position of the polymeric theory.

The management system of vacuum arc furnace no. 8 at JSC “Metallurgical Plant “Electrostal” was modernized. To determine the quality of the ingot during vacuum arc remelting the central research laboratory of JSC “Metallurgical Plant “Electrostal” made a comparative analysis of ingots produced at the vacuum arc furnaces no. 10 and no. 8. The experiments were performed using the EI435 alloy. It was found that the quality of ingots produced in the furnace no. 8 is higher than the quality of ingots from the furnace no. 10. Next further processing of vacuum arc remelting ingots was produced on the press 6300 in the forging shop no. 2, and then at rolling mill 250/350 in the rolling shop no. 3. Derived products from ingots, melted in the furnace no. 8, save up to 83 kilograms of each ton of metal.

The problem of melting the iron-based alloys in a vacuum induction
furnace is to provide a metal refi ning while maintaining alloying elements and ensuring the specifi ed composition. It is impossible to solve this problem without the appropriate quantitative description of deep vacuum refi ning processes. The objective of the research was to create an adequate model of iron-based alloy components evaporation in deep vacuum. The act of the component transition into the gas phase is taken as the limiting stage of the vacuum evaporation process. The fl ow of each alloy component was calculated with Langmuir’s equation. The model developed by the authors gives the adequate results of prediction the iron-based high alloy components evaporation during smelting in a vacuum induction furnace with deep vacuum. The algorithm developed in this work makes possible to calculate the alteration of the alloy composition and the mass of iron during refi ning in a vacuum induction furnace with selected capacity, residual pressure and temperature

Developed high-pressure chamber with a 50 % increase in reaction volume consisting of an oxide container (ZrO2 – Y2O3 ) and locking pads allow to carry out an experiment for high-pressure type “splitsphere-300” at pressures up to 7.0 GPa and temperatures up to 1600 °C and to grow diamond single crystals up to 2 carats, as well as to receive nanostructured diamond compacts and double-layer diamond carbide inserts (DCI). It was established experimentally that for uniform fi lling of all the cavities between the carbide punches and even their optimal loading a container with a porosity of 20 – 25 %.

The operational characteristics of the components of mining and metallurgical machinery can be improved by forming the heterogeneous-hardened surface layer. The article considers the forming methods of heterogeneous structure by surface plastic deformation (SPD). The importance of identifying the nature of the infl uence of parameters of heterogeneous hardened layer on the performance of machine parts are indicated. Modeling of the process of heterogeneous hardening of SPD of the fi nite element method was executed. The authorsgive recom mendations about application of heterogeneous hardening of SPD for hardening the heavy-duty parts. It was found that the use of diff erent methods of SPD allows widely vary the degree of depth and the uniformity of the hardening of machine parts. Therefore, this increase in operation life of responsible highly loaded parts operating under fatigue loading due to hardening of the heterogeneous surface layer may reach 1.5 times or more.

New low-nickel Cr19Ni6Mn10Mo2N steel has highest durability in the hot-rolled and tempered from austenitic area state that provides its eff ective application in the Arctic and Antarctic climatic conditions. The excess of durability over level, common for traditional stainless steel of the Cr18Ni10 type, is provided due to additional solid solution hardening. The usual Cr18Ni9 steel, alloyed by nitrogen to 0.18 %, has the smaller, but also high level of mechanical properties, diff ers in smaller thermal and mechanical stability of austenite and can be applied in less rigid on temperature and loadings service conditions.

Thermogravimetric analysis of cupola coke and anthracite samples was carried out using a Setaram derivatograph by means of test charge diluting in powder thermo-inert solvent. Method applicability in comparative evaluation of various carbon materials properties is shown. At heating up to 1500 °C the behavior of coke and anthracite differs slightly; that allows suggesting the possibility of replacing coke by anthracite. Ash residues melt formation and their crystallization during subsequent cooling depends on the amount and composition of ash and can infl uence signifi cantly the course of technologic process.

The problem of a rule base development containing PI-controller setter’s experience is considered. As a result, it is decided to divide such base into several blocks, which are responsible for P-component and I-component parameters adjustment for cooling and heating processes respectively. The conditions when rules should be activated were determined. They depend on the plant parameters at the moment. Proposed rule base is a part of PIcontroller parameters tuner. It was tested on models of two real heating furnaces with different parameters. According to the conducted experiments, a conclusion could be made that overshoot caused by plant nonlinearity is lower for the control system with a proposed tuner in comparison with the system with a conventional PI-controller. That leads to saving of about 24 % of time needed to follow a setpoint schedule. So PI-controller parameters tuner usage based on developed rule base allows to take into consideration plant nonlinearity, to intensify production and to reduce production costs.

An increase of production activity effi ciency of an enterprise can be reached by effi ciency increase of the management decisions making
process. Modern highly intellectual management systems are based on the principles of fuzzy logic and allow not only to process the large volumes of versatile and unstructured information, but also to make decisions quickly in conditions of invariance and insuffi ciency of data. Such systems usage and adaptation to real working conditions are main ways to increase the production effi ciency. The article describes the possibility of operational management system design. Such system is based on symbiosis between multi-level multi-agent systems and dynamic expert systems and is expected to be used for processes of section mill stand preparation and transfer, making and adjustment of the rolling plan under the conditions of interaction of all agents of a technological circuits.

The article describes the variants of the pyrometallurgical processing of ilmenite concentrates to produce two products - original iron and high-titanium slag. The authors made the comparative evaluation of liquid and solid-phase reduction processes.