AISTech 2019 — Proceedings of the Iron & Steel Technology Conference

6–9 May 2019, Pittsburgh, Pa., USA

DOI 10.1000.377.109

Extension of Stainless Steel Refining Complex by Twin Tank VOD Unit

Thomas Eichert1, Volker Wiegmann1, Jochen Schlüter1, Rainer Teworte1

1
SMS Mevac, 45141 Essen, Germany

Keywords: Stainless steel, ladle metallurgy, triplex process, VOD

The construction work for the new steelmaking plant of Fujian Fuxin Special Steel (FFSS, part of the Formosa
Plastics Corporation), Zhangzhou, Fujian Province, CHINA, has already been started in the middle of 2010. The
project is separated into two phases. The total production capacity of the steelmaking shop is designed for
approx. 900,000 t/y in Phase one and will be increased to 1,800,000 t/y in Phase two by adding another EAF,
AOD-L, LF and Caster. In Tab. 1 the main production and equipment data for the different units are listed up.
The new production line at Fuxin Fujian Special Steel started its operation in 2013 and this plant as several others also
underlines the Chinese strategy which started in 2008 to consistently increase the stainless steel production capacity in
mainland China. Later this tendency will be considered in more detail.

PRODUCTION LINE AT FFSS

Having a closer look to the actual production line at Fuxin (see fig. 1) there is on the one hand the liquid phase which we will
focus on, and on the other hand the solid phase consisting of devices for reheating, hot rolling, pickling and annealing as well
as re-coiling facilities.
The liquid phase starts with the storage area for raw materials like normal and stainless scrap as well as several types of
alloying materials. These raw materials are used to feed the EAF for being molten down, dephosphorized and heated up to
produce a liquid steel melt which is then transferred to the AOD-L converter. The AOD-L converter with its huge reaction
chamber is very proper to execute the following process steps. These are decarburization, slag reduction, desulphurization
and temperature plus analysis trimming.

Fig. 1 Production line at Fuxin Fujian Special Steel [1]

© 2019 by the Association for Iron & Steel Technology. 1061

 Table 1 Main Production Data of Fuxin Fujian Special Steel
Transformer Capacity: Annual capacity:
EAF Tapping weight: 160 T
155 MVA ~ 720.000 t

Rotation Speed:
AOD-L-L Converter Tapping weight: 180 T Specific Volume: 0.55
0.-1.0 rpm

Transformer Heating Capacity:

Ladle Furnace (LF) Melt weight: 180 T Ladle Transfer Cars: 2
Capacity: 28 MVA 4°C/min

Annual capacity:
VOD Unit Melt weight: 150 T No. of tanks: 2
~ 180.000 t

Continuous Caster Slab width: Slab thickness:

Vertical bending type No. of Strands: 1
(CCM) 800-1600 mm 200-220 mm

For most of the steel grades the next step is a final treatment in the LF, if required, and finally the casting on the single strand
slab caster. But for some special grades after AOD-L treatment a vacuum refining treatment in the new VOD unit is required.
These grades are ferritic or austenitic grades with special demands for ultra-low contents of carbon and especially nitrogen.
In Tab. 2 there is a scheduled product mix of those grades which require a VOD treatment. All of these grades are having
carbon specifications below 0.040% down to less than 0.012% and nitrogen specifications below 0.008%. Later the VOD
process with the different treatment steps will be described in more detail. The scheduled share of VOD treatments of the total
production is 35%.

Table 2 Product Mix for the new VOD Unit

Grade C Si Mn Cr Ni Mo Ti N S Metallurgical targets
316L ≤ 0.55 0.70 16.1 10.05 2.05 – ≤ ≤ Deep decarburization
0.025 - - - - - 0.025 0.004 Nitrogen Removal
0.70 0.90 16.3 10.50 2.25 Sulphur Removal
430LX ≤ 0.35 ≤ 16.2 – – 0.25 ≤ ≤ Deep decarburization
0.012 - 0.40 - - 0.009 0.008 Nitrogen Removal
0.55 16.6 0.35 Sulphur Removal
410S 0.020 0.25 0.45 11.9 – – – ≤ ≤ Decarb. + C trimming
- - - - 0.027 0.003 Nitrogen Removal
0.035 0.45 0.65 12.2 Sulphur Removal
410L 0.015 0.15 0.20 12.5 – – 0.25 ≤ ≤ Decarb. + C trimming
- - - - - 0.016 0.005 Nitrogen Removal
0.028 0.30 0.40 13.0 0.35 Sulphur Removal
409L ≤ 0.40 ≤ 11.1 ≤ 0.30 – 7x ≤ ≤ Deep decarburization
0.012 - 0.50 - (C+N) 0.008 0.004 Nitrogen Removal
0.60 11.3 Sulphur Removal

VOD DESIGN
Fig. 2 is showing the general layout of the new VOD unit. To be able to follow the tap-to-tap time of the AOD-L converter
which is in the range of 60 min the VOD unit was designed as a twin tank unit with two vacuum tanks located on shop floor.
Its manual argon couplings to high-temperature resistant hoses are intended for supplying the inserted ladle with bottom-
stirring gas. Both tanks are connected to a vacuum pump system via a movable bend which enables to change the connection
from one tank to the other to increase the production capacity. As the required ladle freeboard of approx. 1500 mm has to be
considered for the VOD process the batch size of this unit is only 150t.
The facility has two mobile vacuum covers (cover cars on a common rail track) with centrally positioned oxygen lances and
equipment for semi-automatic sampling and temperature measurement at atmospheric pressure. The covers are lifted and
lowered hydraulically. Likewise mounted on the cover are vacuum locks for the feeding of bulk additives like ferro-alloys
and slag formers also during vacuum treatment and on each cover one two-track wire-feeding system for the feeding of
metallurgical wires after vacuum treatment. Beside the two vacuum covers there is a third movable atmospheric trimming
cover which mainly serves for addition of gaseous nitrogen via an immersion lance for steel grades with defined nitrogen
contents.

1062 © 2019 by the Association for Iron & Steel Technology.

 Fig. 2
Vacuum generation
To generate the required vacuum pressure, the facility is equipped with a four-stage vacuum pump system consisting of three
steam-ejector stages and 4 water ring pumps in the atmospheric stage (see fig. 3). There are needle valves in the steam nozzles
of ejectors 3A, 3B and B2. These are used for regulating the vacuum pressure in the range of 300-10 mbar and also for
optimising the steam consumption, which is ap- prox. 21 t/h at low vacuum, at a steam pressure of approx. 10 bar at the TOP
(Take-Over Point). The vacuum pump is rated for a suction capacity of 700 kg/h at a pressure of 0.67 mbar and to enable
oxygen blowing for decarburization also at low vacuum pressure. The system is also designed for a suction capacity of 2500
kg/h at a pressure of 10 mbar.
In the off-gas extracted by the pump, the contents of CO, CO2 and O2 are measured continuously by an analysis unit to enable
the process control to be adapted to the current situation in each individual case. The dust arising together with the off-gas is
to a very large extent already removed by a bag filter system before it enters the pump, after the off-gas temperature has been
correspondingly lowered be- forehand by a gas cooler installed upstream.

CCW-
WRP 1-

CCW-

CCW

B2
1170
m3/h
E3b

B1 E3a

Motiv
steam: > 1.5
bar

LSH
≥ 9 0 bar
from

B1 + B2 + E3A + 3 B2 + E3A + 3 E3A + E3B + 4 4

WRP WRP WRP WRP
1

Stea 20.5 t/h 20.5 t/h 9.8 t/h

Pressure < 6.7 < < 1000 mbar

R
Suction 700 4000 kg/h
C it

Fig. 3 Vacuum Pump System with Steam Ejectors and Water Ring Pumps [1]

© 2019 by the Association for Iron & Steel Technology. 1063

 STAINLESS STEEL WORLDWIDE
As already mentioned at the beginning during the past 13-14 years there is a more or less continuous increase of the
production capacity of stainless and heat resisting crude steel worldwide. But the regional tendencies are different as you can
see in fig. 4. While China has increased its stainless steel production capacity from 2008 to 2013 by around 150% from 7
Mt/a in 2008 to 18 Mt/a in 2013, steel producing regions like the Americas, Asia without China or EU + Africa have no
significant changes in this period.

Fig. 4 World stainless crude steel production 2001 - 2013 [2]

The dominating aggregate for refining of stain- less steel was and is still the AOD converter type. Nearly 85% of the stainless
steel worldwide is treated via the so called EAF-AOD-Duplex process especially austenitic steel grades for bulk production
like 304 or 316. But there are a lot of steel plants using the so called EAF-VOD-Duplex process preferably in steel plants with
lower annual production capacities but with a wide spread product mix of low and high alloyed construction steels, many
types of stainless and also special grades.

Fig. 5 No. of VOD Installations for Triplex Route from 1990 - 2014 [3]
A third process route has been coming up in the middle of the 90s and is maybe a good strategy to match the variable demands
of the stainless market. This is the so called Triplex process route which combines the advantages and metallurgical capacities
of an AOD converter with those of a VOD unit. Considering the increasing and instable price of Nickel during the last 10
years, ferritic and also superferritic stainless steels are coming more and more in the focus of the stainless steel customers.
Most of these grades have low carbon and low nitrogen specifications which can be easily matched by using a VOD unit. If
both types of units, AOD and VOD are available this means maximum flexibility and metallurgical capability for a steel
plant.
Having a look at fig. 5 there is a not very pronounced but existing tendency to either extend an existing EAF-AOD-Duplex
production line by a VOD unit or to install both units, AOD and VOD from the very beginning. FFSS has done this for the
following reasons:
The main reason for installing VOD was to have the possibility to produce a considerable share of super-ferritic stainless
steels via the Triplex process route. The second reason was to optimize production either by reducing the process time of the
AOD converter by applying the Triplex process route and to reduce Ar consumption in AOD by using only N2 during AOD
process and to add a degassing step to the VOD process.

1064 © 2019 by the Association for Iron & Steel Technology.

 VACUUM_PRESSURE OXYGEN_FLOW CO_WASTEGAS CO2_WASTEGAS O2_WASTEGAS

1.600 80

Start OB End OB
1.400 70

Pump
1.200 60
down Boiling Slag Final trimming of analysis
out reduction and temperature
OXYGEN FLOW RATE [Nm³/h]

SHARE OF WASTE GAS [%]

1.000 50

800 40

S M1 M2 D1 D2 D3
600 30

400 20

200 10

0 0
12:52 13:07 13:22 13:37 13:52 14:07 14:22 14:37 14:52 15:07 15:22 15:37 15:52 16:07 16:22

Fig. 6 VOD blowing scheme for decarburization [1]

VOD PROCESS
Fig.6 shows typical waste gas analysis curves of a VOD treatment and can be used as an example. The VOD treatment
generally consists of the following vacuum treatment steps:
• Pump-down
• Oxygen blowing
• Boiling out
• Slag reduction
• Final trimming
In this picture the different curves indicate the beginning and the end of these periods. The oxygen blowing period as the
most complex step is subdivided in several sub-steps which are adjusted to the metallurgical reactions inside the melt.
During the initial phase S, which only lasts for a few minutes, blowing is performed at a reduced rate and a short distance
from the metal bath. As soon as an intensive CO reaction, known as the "ignition", is observed, the blowing rate and the
blowing distance are increased. During the static blowing phase M 1, both the blowing rate and the blowing distance re- main
constant but the vacuum pressure is reduced continuously in order to lower the CO partial pressure and thus protect the
chromium against oxidation. When the CO curve has reached its maximum the second main blowing step M 2 is started with
a reduced oxygen flow rate.
In the dynamic phase, the blowing rate is reduced in one or more steps (D1-D3) in order to fol- low the diminishing CO
reaction and, towards the end the blowing distance is also shortened, accompanied by a further reduction of vacuum pressure
and an increase of the bottom stirring rate. The vacuum pressure towards the end of the dynamic blowing phase may be
within the range of approx. 10 mbar. This relatively low pressure is aimed at in order to obtain a lower degree of Cr slagging
above all at high Cr contents. At the usual initial carbon content of 0.20-0.35% C a total blowing time of about 40-55 min is
obtained.
Once the oxygen blowing has terminated, the vacuum pressure is reduced to low vacuum and the melt is subjected to vacuum
carbon deoxidation (BOILING OUT) in order to lower the C content to the smallest possible values. The duration of this
treatment phase is normally between 15 and 20 minutes, depending on the final carbon content aimed at.
Once the "final melting" has terminated, deoxidation and slag-reduction agents as well as slag formers are added (SLAG
REDUCTION). This treatment step is used for the chemical reduction of the Cr oxide contained in the slag in order to
recover the chromium that has become oxidized during the oxygen-blowing phase. FeSi is normally used as the reducing
agent and in order to neutralise the SiO2 arising during the reduction phase in terms of slag basicity, considerable quantities
of lime are added and, where necessary, also fluorspar to reduce the slag viscosity. An intensive metal-slag reaction has to take

© 2019 by the Association for Iron & Steel Technology. 1065

place in this phase and this treatment stage is therefore also performed under low vacuum with correspondingly high
stirring-gas flow-rates.
An additional treatment objective is the further reduction of nitrogen with a view to attaining the lowest possible contents
here also. This is favoured by reducing the oxygen activity in the steel and slag. Together with the reduction of nitrogen, the
sulphur is also reduced to the required low contents. After completion of this treatment stage, the system is flooded and, via
the semi-automatic lances, the temperature is measured and a sample taken.

CONCLUSIONS
Fujian Fuxin Special Steel has extended the new existing stainless steel process line by a VOD unit to have the metallurgical
capability of treating selected steel grades with low carbon and especially nitrogen contents. By this Fujian Fuxin Special
Steel is following a prevailing tendency in China and Asia to either enhance an existing production line by a VOD unit or to
realize a Triplex process route for stainless steel refining already from the outset.

REFERENCES
1. SMS Group
2. ISSF International Stainless Steel Forum 2018
3. VDEh Plant facts data base

1066 © 2019 by the Association for Iron & Steel Technology.