The high cost of the products made by Russian ferrous metallurgy sector and their consequent competitive disadvantage in the world market can be attributed to the large amount of energy consumed in the manufacturing operations. According to the data in [ 1 ], energy costs account for 8.04% of the total production cost of cold-rolled sheet in Russia, but only 4.92% in the Western nations. In most cases, the high levels of energy consumption are due to the use of suboptimal regimes for refining, ladle treatment, casting, and rolling of the steel. For example, according to calculations performed on the basis of domestic and foreign data [2, 3], the energy consumption at integrated plants that employ oxygen-converter steelmaking and continuous casting is as follows: 6.5 MWh/ton in Russia, 6.1 MWh/ton in the U.S., 4.9 MWh/ton in the countries of the EEC. Energy consumption in Russia is even higher in electric steelmaking. Even in continuous casting, energy consumption is 1.9 MWh/ton rolled product in Russia and just 1.3 MWh/ton rolled product in the EEC. When calculated on the basis of the data in [3], the average energy costs in metallurgical production are 22-25% higher in Russia than abroad (Fig. 1).We previously calculated the efficiency of heating steel on a ladle-furnace unit (LFU) and in a conventional ladle when steel is made in an oxygen converter. The calculations were based on data for oxygen-converter shop No. 2 at the Novolipetsk Metallurgical Combine [4]. In this article, we calculate the potential efficiency of heating steel on LFUs under the conditions which exist in the electric steelmaking shop of the Oskol Electrometallurgical Combine (OI~MK). The study was conducted as part of the program "Development of a Technology and Construction of a Continuous Unit for the Systematic Treatment of Steel (CSTU)," which is being funded by the Ministry of Sciences of the Russian Federation.When a ladle-furnace unit is used and the metal is heated by an electric arc, the role of the arc steelmaking furnace is reduced to melting of the metallic charge and heating of the melt to a temperature sufficient to ensure its normal tapping from the furnace and transfer to the refining ladle. Organizing the heat in this manner significantly increases the productivity of the furnace, i.e., reduces capital costs, stabilizes the chemical composition and temperature of the molten steel, and thus reduces expenditures on ferroalloys and lining materials, oxidation losses of the charge materials, etc. Thanks to these advantages, nine LFUs have been introduced within the last eight years at the leading Russian metallurgical plants. However, not all of these units are being operated under the optimum conditions. This applies in particular to the consumption of electric power for making the steel.Although the temperature of the melt tapped from an arc steelmaking furnace is lower when an LFU is used and energy costs and the duration of the furnace portion of the heat are reduced accordingly, additional energy costs are incurred by hav...
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