Improvement of Refining Process of Stainless Steel

The melting section in Shibukawa Plant, Daido Steel Co., Ltd. produce many kinds of steels and sized ingots to match the customer's various needs. Therefore, it is rare case to apply the same refining pattern in argon oxygen decarburization (AOD) process to produce various stainless steels, and there are some operational errors of the refining time, dilution gas, and reducing material consumption. In order to minimize these errors and producing cost, decarburization and nitrogen behavior during AOD process were studied, and the decarburization and nitrogen estimation formulas were introduced. This system could optimize the refining pattern in this process, and save dilution gas and reducing material consumption.