Quality and production of sinter is essential for an appropriate operation of the blast furnace. A model for the prediction of the burn through point in sintering process is developed in order to improve the stability of the process. Speed strand, air flow through the bed, raw material rates and real thermocouples temperatures are considered as input variables. The sinter bed is split into portions and a set of differential equations (mass and heat balances) are established in order to obtain a good estimation of the gas temperature at the wind boxes. These temperatures are compared with the actual measurements and entered into the model to achieve a typical modern filtered scheme.

The design of a parameter-dependent controller to reject periodic mould level fluctuations at a thin slab caster is presented. These fluctuations can be related to bulging of the solidified steel shell between the supporting rolls. They deteriorate the steel quality and prohibit high speed casting. A state of the art controller has been designed to suppress these casting speed dependent fluctuations and is based on a H∞-optimal controller design technique. The controller has been implemented at caster of the Corus Direct Sheet Plant in IJmuiden. Measurement results show a significant reduction of these periodic mould level fluctuations.

ArcelorMittal Atlantique has developed the DWI Ultra Low Aluminium grades to improve the rejection rates during the deep drawing of beverage cans. At the time of industrialization of this grade, an increase of slivers defects was recorded. The analysis of these slivers permitted to trace down their origin to the continuous casting powder. The compared analysis of slags during casting, respectively on standard DWI and ULA DWI, pointed out infiltration phenomena and inclusion pick-up. A high viscosity powder was formulated. An acceptable sliver rate was achieved with a strong decrease in downstream repaired coils.

The constraints of CAL are spread over narrow heat cycles, sensitive strip formats, recurrent product size changes, flexible lines and productivity. An up-to-date mathematical model, coupled with an advanced transition management has been designed to synchronously control the furnace equipments as well as the line speed. It allows process reaction forecast on the current and coming strips through deep thermal modelling and it generates the optimal routes for driving the transitions.

Transverse buckling of a strip in continuous annealing production line (CAPL) has been investigated. Transverse buckling occurs when the induced compressive stress resulting from non uniform longitudinal stretching in the strip exceeds a critical buckling stress. The MARC software has been used along with a buckling nonlinear geometrical analysis. The mechanisms of major factors, such as roll profile, flatness, strip size, transverse distribution of temperature, welding seam and strip track-off are reported. The average hour output increased by 5.89% through a series of technical developments.

The new Mo free duplex stainless steel UR2202 was developed by Industeel in close cooperation with Ugitech - Schmolz + Bickenbach. It can be used in many construction or transport applications, as a substitute for 304 and 304L. With at least the same corrosion properties, the new UR2202 has higher mechanical properties. This provides the potential for significant weight savings for fabricated tanks, pressure vessels etc., when compared to the austenitic grade. Different welding products are considered to achieve homogeneous or heterogeneous welds with the lean duplex base metal and can be selected according to the required corrosion resistance, toughness and tensile properties.