Abstract
Since the USA patent of electroslag remelting (ESR) metallurgy was held by P. K. Hopkins in 1940, the ESR technology has now entered a relatively mature stage after a 70-year history of development. At present, the annual capacity of ESR steels around the world is approximately 2 million tonnes. ESR metallurgy emerged in China in 1958. Since then, electroslag furnaces were gradually installed in Chinese special steel plants. At present, there are more than 200 electroslag remelting furnaces in the metallurgical workshops of these steel plants with an annual production capacity of about 500,000 tonnes of ingots and components made of about 200 varieties of steels, including high quality steels and superalloys. This ESR technology is used as a special remelting and refining method for producing high quality steels and superalloys. However, traditional ESR technology has the disadvantages of environmental pollution and extremely high specific power consumption. High power consumption restricts, to a certain degree, the competitiveness of ESR steels in the marketplace. The measures of power saving in ESR have been researched in recent years. In this paper, some factors influencing power consumption, such as filling ratio, slag system, slag amount, melting rate and furnace structure are reviewed, and several new ESR technologies for power saving are proposed.
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Yun-long Xiong Male born in 1974, Research Fellow, Ph.D candidate. He has more than 10 years’ experience in special steel casting technology research and new product development. He has participated in many national major projects, such as the National Natural Science Foundation Project, the National High- Tech Research and Development (863) Program of China, and the National Science and Technology Major Project of the Ministry of Science and Technology of China. He has been authorized 5 national patents of China, and won the Second Prize of the National Technological Invention Award. To date, he has published more than 20 papers in conferences and magazines at home and abroad.
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Xiong, YL., Song, ZW., Wang, AG. et al. Factors influencing power consumption and power-saving measures in ESR process. China Foundry 16, 1–7 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41230-019-8135-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41230-019-8135-5