Developing and implementing a series of measures to increase the production and quality of steel made in oxygen-converter shops

Due to the highly competitive global market for finished rolled products, MMK (Magnitogorsk Metallurgical Combine) and Severstal'have worked with research institutes and planning organizations develop and introduce technological programs to increase capacity of the converter shops (to eight million tons a year) and radically improve steel quality by reducing nitrogen levels to < 0.004%, hydrogen levels to < 0.002% and to make high-grade steels for tin plate, automobile sheet, dynamo, transformer, relays, and pipelines. MMK has developed and installed a unit to measure the parameters of the heat (water-cooled lance and a measurement block). This unit has halved incidents of overblowing and shortened heats by 3 min. Productivity and quality have also been raised by measures increasing cross sections of continuous-cast semifinished, by asymmetric casting of slabs and by improving caster reliability.