Improvement of Heat-Treatment Conditions for Square-Cross-Section Steel Billets Downstream of a Continuous-Section Billet Casting Machine

Abstract

Square steel billets (with cross sections 100 × 100 mm and 150 × 150 mm) cast on a continuous-bar-casting machine (CBCM) have a mass-averaged temperature of 1000–1100°C after gas cutting, resulting in considerable interest in storing the sensible heat from the billets in a thermostat for subsequent use in the reheating furnace. We describe a mathematical model of the thermal conditions in the square steel billet during solidification in a CBCM and cooling in air when contained in a thermostat and when heated in a furnace. We also describe theoretical results for the temperature field in the billet along the CBCM–thermostat–reheating furnace process train under several reasonable post-continuous-billet-casting-machine (CCM) heat treatment scenarios.