Energy Saving: the High-Speed Solutions in Danieli CCMs

A. De Luca, A.Sgro’, M. Fornasier

Danieli &C. Officine Meccaniche S.p.A.

Via Nazionale 41, Buttrio (UD) – Italy
Phone: +39 0432 195 8111
Email: a.deluca@danieli.it, a.sgro@danieli.it, m.fornasier@danieli.it

Keywords: High Speed, Energy Saving, Endless Rolling, Direct Charging, Induction Furnace, OPEX Reduction, Production
Yield

INTRODUCTION
Over the past 15 years worldwide sensitivity about environmental issues has increased: one of the main concerns is related
to greenhouse gas and the consequences deriving from uncontrolled emissions.
The power and industry sectors, combined, dominate current global CO 2 emissions, accounting for about 60% of total
CO 2 emissions and they are generated by burning fossil fuels, mainly coal and oil.
Fig.1 and Fig.2 (source IEA 2013)1 show respectively the development of the total final energy consumption distribution
by sector and the total primary energy supply distribution by fuel (TPES, it is the sum of all primary energy resources
worldwide).

Figure 1. Total final energy consumption distribution by sector: comparison years 1971, 2013

Figure 2. Total primary energy supply distribution by fuel: comparison years 1971, 2013

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 In 2013 global CO 2 emissions reached 32.2 Gt CO 2 , an increase of 2.2%
over 2012 levels: fig.3 shows the CO 2 emissions by sector.
The steel industry constitutes around 19% of industry sector and the
percentage of iron and steel in CO 2 emissions is approximately 6.5 %.
Under these circumstances, the steel industry has recognized the need to
take actions to limit the impact of its own activities on climate change:
one the most effective initiative was to establish a method to calculate the
CO 2 emission intensity of steel plants irrespective of products
manufactured and geographic characteristics (ISO 14404)2.
It is also clear the relationship between CO 2 emissions reduction and
energy efficiency concept: roughly 60% of CO 2 emissions reduction can
be attributable to energy saving activities.
Figure 3. CO 2 emissions year 2013
Energy efficiency is a domestic resource, available in all countries and it has an immediate OPEX reduction effect. The
implementation of an Energy Management System is the way to plan energy saving activities, including analysis of the
best technologies available (BAT).
Danieli has developed in the last decades a multiple approach in the concept of the casting-rolling process to cope with
more demanding requests in terms of productivity and flexibility in the operations.
The endless-rolling process conceived in 2000 to reduce energy in reheating before rolling among other aspects, it is
nowadays a reliable reality performing average high casting speed of 6.4m/min for SQ 130 mm billet, exceeding almost by
20% the original design capacity.
Danieli has kept the will to pursue in improving both in energy saving and productivity by exploring new solutions to be
combined with the already proven high casting speed technology of Power Mould 3. Last but not least, the achieved
increase of yield in the new process has to be considered part of energy saving target.
In this paper, the concepts of casting-rolling processes are developed with a new approach in layout and operations.
The relevant results of this new solutions compared to the existing state-of-the-art for rebar steels are described, aiming to
extend it in future also to higher value-added grades.

ENERGY SAVING IN CASTING AND ROLLING: OVERVIEW

One of the key factors for energy saving in the steel production is the integration of technological processes.
In the case of rolled products one criteria is to think back the entire process of the continuous casting, reheating and
rolling.
The focus is the operations in the caster and rolling mill to achieve a billet average temperature value to allow a significant
energy saving while accomplishing the production schedule both in caster and rolling mill.
Hot forming takes place at rolling temperatures of about 1000 °C for rebar production. In order to feed the billets with this
temperature to the rolling mill, a specific continuous reheating furnace (pusher-type, walking-beam) is commonly used.
The material is usually charged cold (at about 20 °C) or warm or hot (600-800 °C) into the reheating furnace and is heated
up to the suitable temperature for rolling. The furnace usually consists of the three zones of preheating, heating and
soaking respectively.
For limited amount of reheating (mainly soaking), induction furnaces are typically used.
Fig. 4 shows conceptual material flows in a cast-rolling plant:
A. Cold billets are charged into a reheating furnace (RF)
B. Hot (warm) billets are charged into a reheating furnace (RF)
C. Billets cast at high casting speed are directly rolled after passing through an induction furnace with or without use
of billet welder for endless rolling

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 D. High speed Endless casting and rolling is applied, with or without utilizing an induction furnace

Figure 4. Material flow alternatives

A. Continuous casting with cold charging from storage

In this traditional configuration cold billets are transferred to the reheating furnace (RF) from a cooling bed or from a
storage area.
Considering an ambient temperature of 20°C, it can be roughly estimated an energy consumption for reheating of about
1.2GJ/t.4 The excess of scale produced during the reheating phase could be up to 1% in addition to what produced in
continuous casting process.

B. Continuous casting with RF hot (warm) charging

If the billet is moved from cooling bed to the reheating furnace at hot (warm) temperature, e.g. 600 °C, the possible saving
in terms of reheating energy is estimated in 0.4 GJ/t. 4 The scale losses in such a case are lower compared to the cold
charge.

C. High speed Continuous casting with direct rolling through induction furnace
Energy Saving Compact (E.S.C.) layouts have been implemented by Danieli to takes the major energy saving benefits
from high speed continuous casting, reducing at the same time CAPEX and OPEX.
The concept is to hot charge rolling mill with billets cast at high speed at a temperature of 850-950°C, having the
possibility of soaking when necessary through an inductive furnace (soaking). This process permits a consistent saving
energy, up to 1GJ/t. 4 The induction furnace allows a fine temperature control for the billet, since the power is set
according to the actual thermal load of the single billet , hence contributing to additional energy saving and moreover it
has limited emissions (electrical power supply) compared to the other furnace types. Besides its compact design

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 contributes to reduce the investment cost, the future maintenance and production line length.
The possibility to apply the practice of the direct charging is dependent from the technological parameters and the site
conditions for existing plants. In particular the distances among caster, induction furnace and rolling mill and the casting
speed play an important role in making possible or not the hot charging and the consequential energy saving.
Therefore, it is not always possible taking advantage of the hot charging benefits in particular when billet transport over
long distances increases temperature losses.
High speed casting helps to keep a higher thermal charge in the billet (figg.5, 6) and can compensate the temperature
losses in transporting to the rolling mill, as well as the implementation of insulation hoods on the roller tables. The
majority of losses are due to the radiative thermal effect and they are heavily affected by the time needed to cut the billet
and to take it from the cutting area to the induction furnace.

Figure 5. High speed casting thermal effect (external Figure 6. Casting speed effect on billet temperature
strand)
As an example, at the same given total productivity, a three strand caster operated at 5.0 m/min saves up to 0.15 GJ/t in
respect to a five strand caster operated at 3.0 m/min.
The E.S.C. is proposed for production exceeding 500,000 t/y with two or more casting strands, with or without the
installation of a billet welder for endless rolling.

D. Endless casting and rolling (with or without IF)

Danieli has made real and reliable the layout for the casting with endless rolling.5 The continuous strand process eliminates
billet crops, which, along with eliminating multiple head and tail crops on the final product, maximizes product yield
through the mill. Furthermore with endless operation the transient of billet-to billet rolling is eliminated: this guarantees
stationary conditions to the rolling process for long time allowing extremely good quality of the product.
The caster and rolling mill are located for the shortest link possible considering the operative needs and the metallurgical
process (figg.7, 8).

Figure 7. MIDA layout

196 AISTech 2016 Proceedings. © 2016 by AIST.

The core of the concept is the high speed caster equipped with FCC oscillator and Power Mould (fig.9), to be able to cast
at very high speed in order to follow the rolling mill productivity and to present at the input of the first stand an “endless”
billet with the highest heat charge while minimising the contribution given by the induction furnace.

Figure 8. MIDA – Rolling mill entrance view Figure 9. Power Mould

Over the years the fine tuning of the operation and the technological improvement have progressed with casting speed up
to 7.2 m/min and nowadays the mill can operated without IF at a yearly average casting speed of 6.4m/min on SQ130 mm
billet.

CONTINUOUS CASTING WITH DIRECT AND ENDLESS ROLLING FOR MAXIMUM FLEXIBILITY AND
ENERGY SAVING

The Sovel steel plant experience (Almyros – Greece)

In 2010, the works for the installation of a new long products Danieli Rolling mill were completed, thus increasing the
mill’s production capacity by 300,000 tpy to a total of 1,200,000 tpy. The strand 0 was previously upgraded to high speed
casting by installing the Fast Cast Cube and Power Mould technologies to serve directly the new rolling mill in the
casting-endless rolling configuration. SQ 140 mm rebar billets are cast and rolled in bars and coils from diameter 8mm up
to diameter 20mm.
After optimisation of the production, the new target was the energy saving in the production chain particularly for
reheating furnaces.
In 2014 a bypass roller table has been added in the route to the old rolling mill and a new set of induction furnaces has
been installed at the entrance of the old rolling mill in order to switch off definitely the gas reheating furnace (see fig.10):
the new configuration and a different setup in the caster have contributed to an energy saving up to
0.1 GJ/t.

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 Figure 10. Sovel Almyros layout of caster and rolling mill

At the same time some trials started with the purpose to increase the thermal capacity of the billet and to even reduce the
induction furnace consumption.
Fig.11 shows the temperature pattern of a billet cross-section
calculated at the entrance of the induction furnace area (SQ 140
mm, casting speed 4.0 m/min). It can be noticed the huge
temperature gradient between the billet centre and the corners (up
to a maximum of 200°C) and moreover the disruption in the
isothermal distribution at the billet corners. The basic requirement
for rolling is to reheat the corners and to equalize as much as
possible the section: lower temperatures require more time for
equalisation, more time increases losses hence some energy losses
should be considered also in the induction furnace.

Figure 11. SQ billet cross-section temperature pattern

New ideas came up to overcome the constraints given by the actual state-of-the-art and are now currently on the
development phase.

CONCLUSIONS
Investigations done into the structure of energy consumption showed that about 76-84% of the total energy input within
hot rolling mills is required as thermal energy and about 16-24% for forming, idle running and auxiliary processes.4
Consequently, the main energy consumers within a hot rolling mill are the reheating furnaces and the drives of the rolls.
This high energy demand is strictly connected to the thermal charge of the billet: less average temperature available at the
entrance of the rolling mill more reheating energy necessary before starting the hot forming cycle.

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High speed casting revealed to be a key of the success of the energy saving concept layout.
The high productivity single strand MIDA, operated up to 7.2 m/min (yearly average 6.4 m/min), is now an industrial
reality in casting and rolling without any kind of reheating energy.
Single strand MIDA plants are currently designed up to 500,000 tpy.
The MIDA ECR design capitalizes the Best Available Technologies where melting, casting and rolling are carried out in
one continuous and uninterrupted production process from scrap to finished product and can guarantee CAPEX saving and
outstanding OPEX results by energy saving, yield and final product quality.
Direct charging layouts takes also big advantages from high speed casting giving the possibility to reduce reheating energy
consumption up to 0.15 GJ/t, if compared with a conventional speed casters.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors would like to thank Sovel SA Company and Mr. K. Konduris (Meltshop & Micromill Manager- Sovel
Almyros) and his team for the valuable cooperation given in all phases of these trials.

REFERENCES
1. “CO2 Emissions from fuel combustion” , International Energy Agency, 2015 Edition
2. “ISO 14404:2013 – Calculation method of CO2 emission intensity from iron and steel production”, International
Organization for Standardization
3. A. Miconi, A. De Luca, A. Sgrò, M. Di Giacomo, “Danieli Power Mould: Key Technology in Evolution for High
Productivity, High Quality and Energy Savings”, AISTech Proceedings 2015
4. O. Rentz, R. Jochum, F. Schultmann, “Report on Best Available Techniques in the German Ferrous Metals
Processing Industry”, French-German Institute for Environmental Research, March 1999, pp 159-162
5. K. Keller, C. Travaglini, E. Cavinato, P. Losso, “The New Micromill Danieli (MiDa) at CMC Arizona - An
Innovative Process for the Most Competitive Production of Rebar Product”, AISTech Proceedings 2010

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