SAIL, the Steel Authority of India Ltd., recently awarded Danieli Davy Distington an order for a new slab caster, to be installed in its Bhilai Steel Plant, India.

The contract, which was awarded to a consortium led by Danieli, specifies the turnkey supply of a new slab casting plant designed for a production of one million tonnes per year of qualified slabs.

The product mix for the new caster includes mild, low, medium, peritectic and high carbon steel grades, high tensile steels, boiler grades, API and EDD steels. The plant will produce slabs that are 220-mm thick and 1100- to 1800-mm wide.

The new casting machine will feature a vertical curved design with multi-point bending and unbending roll diagram. The supported machine length exceeds 33 meters in order to facilitate a maximum casting speed of 2 meters per minute. The caster will include an in-mould advanced breakout prevention system, mould level control system based on slide gate and eddy current sensor, and a state-of-the art INMO mould, which will be capable of in-line width adjustment during casting. The caster will also feature a hydraulically-operated oscillator, OPTIMUM type segments (which will accommodate the future application of Dynamic Soft Reduction), and air mist secondary cooling, controlled by dynamic model.

The scope of supply also includes complete L1 and L2 automaton systems, including mathematical models for the Dynamic Secondary Cooling (DSC) system. In addition to the technological equipment, the contract also covers the supply and construction of all related auxiliary equipment and plants such as civil works, dedicated water treatment plant, gas and compressed air plants, and complete electrical distribution up to the substation.