The Evolution of the Thin Slab Caster Concept: From "First Generation Plants" to the Latest Production and Quality World Record Breaking Applications

Since the first pioneering applications of thin slab casting in late eighties, Danieli developed his own peculiar thin slab caster design aimed to overcome the quality and productivity limitations of the first generation plants. This approach has been materialized in the "flexible Thin Slab Caster" (fTSC) concept, where "flexibility" stands for his peculiar capacity to ensure top quality slabs in the full operative range of casting conditions requested by the mill, over an extremely diversified product mix of steel grades and slab thickness. After about 20 years from the first pioneering applications, this strategic approach in innovating consolidated solutions allows Danieli to proudly include as his references some of the world record breaking plants such as Tangshan Iron and Steel in P.R.China that positively proved the possibility to overcome the threshold productivity of 3 million tons per year of hot rolled coils (with two casting slabs in operation) strands since 2005. As for quality, since the first industrial application of its fTSC caster in 1997, Danieli EssarAlgoma plant (Canada), consistently proved the possibility to cast sensitive grades, such as peritectic, which are still today excluded, as a role, from the product mix of "first generation" thin slab casters. This process of targeting more demanding grades continued over the years, allowing at present to practically cover all the steel grades for flat products application, even API X60 and X70 used for artic pipe applications, successfully first produced in Danieli Ezz Flat Steel plant in 2005 and high Silicon grades (Si content exceeding 3,2%) as in Danieli Benxi Iron and Steel plant in China, since 2005. This paper describes the defining features of Danieli fTSC, including the most recent developments conceived to target record breaking casting speeds of 8 meters per minute, that allow Danieli plants to aim at plant productivities of 1.8/2 million tons per stand, as in the new POSCO plant in Korea.