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Metals
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Advanced Tundish Metallurgy and Clean Steel Technology—Second Edition
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Advanced Tundish Metallurgy and Clean Steel Technology—Second Edition

A special issue of Metals (ISSN 2075-4701). This special issue belongs to the section "Extractive Metallurgy".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 July 2025 | Viewed by 9254

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Chao Chen

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Guest Editor
College of Materials Science and Engineering, Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan 030024, China
Interests: process modeling; clean steel; inclusions; CFD; physical model; tundish; ladle refining; stainless steel
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. Rodolfo Morales

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Metallurgy, Instituto Politécnico Nacional-ESIQIE, Ciudad de México 07738, Mexico
Interests: turbulent flows; CFD; steelmaking and continuous casting; kinetics of metallurgical processes
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Adam Cwudziński

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Metallurgy and Metals Technology, Czestochowa University of Technology, Czestochowa, Poland
Interests: iron and steel extractive metallurgy; continuous casting; tundish metallurgy; physical and numerical modelling
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Tundish has been widely used in the continuous casting of steel, aluminum, and copper. In the early 1980s, the concept of tundish metallurgy was put forward by Heaslip and McLean. Forty years since then, tundish metallurgy has developed with the evolution and demand of continuous casting as well as clean steel production. Extensive physical and mathematical model studies on tundish have been carried out. An even larger tundish volume, long refractory service life, stable performance for high-speed casting, uniform temperature control by heating technologies, and flexible flow control for casting speed adjustment are new demands and technologies for tundish. Clean steel production is a systematic and complicated project which occurs throughout the whole steel production process. Raw material (ferroalloys), secondary refining, tundish, and continuous casting are all key issues which need to be addressed in clean steel production.

In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include, but are not limited to, the following: tundish metallurgy, secondary refining, continuous casting, clean steel technologies, refractories, converter and electric arc furnace steelmaking, and metallurgical equipment development. We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Chao Chen
Prof. Dr. Rodolfo Morales
Dr. Adam Cwudziński
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Metals is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • tundish
  • clean steel
  • inclusions
  • ladle refining
  • continuous casting
  • steelmaking
  • refractory
  • physical modeling
  • CFD

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Related Special Issue

Published Papers (7 papers)

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Research

15 pages, 4447 KiB  
Article
Numerical Assessment on the DC Casting 7050 Aluminum Alloy Under Melt Shearing and Magnetic Fields
by Jinchuan Wang, Yubo Zuo, Qingfeng Zhu, Rui Wang and Xianliang Guo
Metals 2025, 15(4), 360; https://doi.org/10.3390/met15040360 - 25 Mar 2025
Viewed by 335
Abstract
The direct-chill (DC) casting of diameter of 300 mm 7050 aluminum alloy ingots under the impact of intense melt shearing and electromagnetic fields (combined fields) was simulated using the COMSOL software 6.2 to determine the temperature distribution and melt flow. The results indicated [...] Read more.
The direct-chill (DC) casting of diameter of 300 mm 7050 aluminum alloy ingots under the impact of intense melt shearing and electromagnetic fields (combined fields) was simulated using the COMSOL software 6.2 to determine the temperature distribution and melt flow. The results indicated that the use of electromagnetic fields, intense melt shearing, and combined fields can all improve melt flow velocity, heat transfer efficiency, temperature field uniformity, and reduce sump depth when compared to conventional DC casting. However, the use of combined fields creates the shallowest sump and the most uniform temperature field. With the application of electromagnetic field, intensive melt shearing, and combined fields, the sump depth was decreased from 121 mm of DC casting to 118 mm, 112 mm, and 110 mm, respectively. Under the impact of the combined fields, the increase in the rotor rotation speed leads to the enhancement of overall flow velocity, the improvement of temperature distribution uniformity, and the reduction of melt temperature in the sump. The temperatures at reference points A and B dropped from 631.80 °C and 645.26 °C to 630.20 °C and 630.75 °C, respectively, as the rotor rotation speed increased from 1500 rpm to 6000 rpm. Additionally, the application of the combined fields resulted in a uniform microstructure distribution and notable grain refinement. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advanced Tundish Metallurgy and Clean Steel Technology—Second Edition)
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17 pages, 6445 KiB  
Article
Influence of B2O3 on the Viscosity and Melt Structure of CaO-SiO2-M2O (M = Li, Na)-Based Slags
by Jinhui Wang, Jie Qi, Yuanxin Shi, Yingying Dou and Chengjun Liu
Metals 2025, 15(3), 286; https://doi.org/10.3390/met15030286 - 6 Mar 2025
Viewed by 542
Abstract
In the process of continuous casting, especially high-speed continuous casting, the inflow state of the mold flux is particularly important. The fluxing agent is one of the most important factors affecting the flow state. The influence of the typical fluxing agent B2 [...] Read more.
In the process of continuous casting, especially high-speed continuous casting, the inflow state of the mold flux is particularly important. The fluxing agent is one of the most important factors affecting the flow state. The influence of the typical fluxing agent B2O3 on the viscous characteristics and melt structure of the fluorine-free CaO-SiO2-M2O (M = Li, Na) system was analyzed. The following conclusions were drawn. In the CaO-SiO2-Na2O slags, with the increasing addition of B2O3, the viscosity, breaking temperature, and polymerization degree of the slag show a gradually decreasing trend. When the mass fraction of B2O3 increased from 0 to 10%, the increase in two-dimensional [BO3] structural units played a dominant role. When the mass fraction of B2O3 reached 15%, the network was affected by the increase in [BO3] and the low-polymerized [SiO4] tetrahedrons. The CaO-SiO2-Li2O slag system had a lower breaking temperature due to the formation of phases such as Li2O·2B2O3, of a low melting temperature. The initial degree of depolymerization of the network was high. Upon increasing the addition of B2O3, the relative proportion of the network modifier structural units significantly increased, resulting in the enhanced instability of the network structure. As a result, the effect of [SiO4]-polymerization was stronger than that of [BO3]-depolymerization in maintaining the stability of the network structure. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advanced Tundish Metallurgy and Clean Steel Technology—Second Edition)
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16 pages, 6551 KiB  
Article
Steel Surface Defect Detection Technology Based on YOLOv8-MGVS
by Kai Zeng, Zibo Xia, Junlei Qian, Xueqiang Du, Pengcheng Xiao and Liguang Zhu
Metals 2025, 15(2), 109; https://doi.org/10.3390/met15020109 - 23 Jan 2025
Viewed by 1165
Abstract
Surface defects have a serious detrimental effect on the quality of steel. To address the problems of low efficiency and poor accuracy in the manual inspection process, intelligent detection technology based on machine learning has been gradually applied to the detection of steel [...] Read more.
Surface defects have a serious detrimental effect on the quality of steel. To address the problems of low efficiency and poor accuracy in the manual inspection process, intelligent detection technology based on machine learning has been gradually applied to the detection of steel surface defects. An improved YOLOv8 steel surface defect detection model called YOLOv8-MGVS is designed to address these challenges. The MLCA mechanism in the C2f module is applied to increase the feature extraction ability in the backbone network. The lightweight GSConv and VovGscsp cross-stage fusion modules are added to the neck network to reduce the loss of semantic information and achieve effective information fusion. The self-attention mechanism is exploited into the detection network to improve the detection ability of small targets. Defect detection experiments were carried out on the NEU-DET dataset. Compared with YOLOv8n from experimental results, the average accuracy, recall rate, and frames per second of the improved model were improved by 5.2%, 10.5%, and 6.4%, respectively, while the number of parameters and computational costs were reduced by 5.8% and 14.8%, respectively. Furthermore, the defect detection generalization experiments on the GC-10 dataset and SDD DET dataset confirmed that the YOLOv8-MGVS model has higher detection accuracy, better lightweight, and speed. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advanced Tundish Metallurgy and Clean Steel Technology—Second Edition)
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19 pages, 13056 KiB  
Article
Comparative Analysis of Liquid Steel Fluid Dynamics, Including Spillage and Spreading on the Bottom of a Three-Strand Tundish Between Two Turbulence Inhibitors at the Start of the Casting Sequence
by Octavio Flores Jazmín, Maria del Carmen Coronado Rivera, Rodolfo Morales Davila, Javier Guarneros, Jafeth Rodriguez, Alfonso Nájera-Bastida and Rumualdo Servín Castañeda
Metals 2024, 14(12), 1370; https://doi.org/10.3390/met14121370 - 30 Nov 2024
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 826
Abstract
Casting AISI 52100 steel represents a challenge, particularly at the start of the casting sequence, due to its low melting point. The steel spilling over the tundish bottom cools down rapidly and freezes in the stopper rods, obliging the closure of a strand. [...] Read more.
Casting AISI 52100 steel represents a challenge, particularly at the start of the casting sequence, due to its low melting point. The steel spilling over the tundish bottom cools down rapidly and freezes in the stopper rods, obliging the closure of a strand. Therefore, an additional function of turbulence inhibitors is to induce steel masses at a slow cooling rate. This paper deals with the physical and mathematical modeling of unsteady state-flows using two turbulence inhibitors (TIs) during the sequence start. One of the TIs makes steel spill forming thin layers of liquid on the tundish bottom, while the other forms a thicker layer. Based on the Flow of Volume Model, the mathematical simulation was satisfactorily replicated in the water model. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advanced Tundish Metallurgy and Clean Steel Technology—Second Edition)
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13 pages, 27460 KiB  
Article
Comparative Study of Heat Transfer Simulation and Effects of Different Scrap Steel Preheating Methods
by Pengcheng Xiao, Yuxin Jin, Liguang Zhu, Chao Wang and Rong Zhu
Metals 2024, 14(8), 913; https://doi.org/10.3390/met14080913 - 12 Aug 2024
Viewed by 1242
Abstract
The materials charged into a converter comprise molten iron and scrap steel. Adjusting the ratio by increasing scrap steel and decreasing molten iron is a steelmaking raw material strategy designed specifically for China’s unique circumstances, with the goal of lowering carbon emissions. To [...] Read more.
The materials charged into a converter comprise molten iron and scrap steel. Adjusting the ratio by increasing scrap steel and decreasing molten iron is a steelmaking raw material strategy designed specifically for China’s unique circumstances, with the goal of lowering carbon emissions. To maintain the converter tapping temperature, scrap must be preheated to provide additional heat. Current scrap preheating predominantly utilizes horizontal tunnel furnaces, resulting in high energy consumption and low efficiency. To address these issues, a three-stage shaft furnace for scrap preheating was designed, and Fluent software was used to compare and study the preheating efficiency of the new three-stage furnace against the traditional horizontal furnace under various operational conditions. Initially, a three-dimensional transient multi-field coupling model was developed for two scrap preheating scenarios, examining the effects of both furnaces on scrap surface and core temperatures across varying preheating durations and gas velocities. Simulation results indicate that, under identical gas heat consumption conditions, scrap achieves markedly higher final temperatures in the shaft furnace compared to the horizontal furnace, with scrap surface and core temperatures increasing notably with extended preheating times and higher gas velocities, albeit with a gradual decrease in heating rate as the scrap temperature rises. At a gas velocity of 9 m/s and a preheating time of 600 s, the shaft furnace achieves the highest waste heat utilization rate for scrap, with scrap averaging 325 °C higher than in the horizontal furnace, absorbing an additional 202 MJ of heat per ton. In the horizontal preheating furnace, scrap steel exhibits a heat absorption efficiency of 35%, whereas in the vertical furnace, this efficiency increases notably to 63%. In the vertical furnace, the waste heat recovery rate of scrap steel reaches 57%. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advanced Tundish Metallurgy and Clean Steel Technology—Second Edition)
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12 pages, 4355 KiB  
Article
Research on Magnesium Reduction Slag for Dephosphorization of Low-Silicon Hot Metal in Steelmaking Process
by Ming Lv, Kun Xie, Kui Xue and Zhaohui Zhang
Metals 2022, 12(10), 1617; https://doi.org/10.3390/met12101617 - 27 Sep 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1814
Abstract
The melting temperature and viscosity of magnesium reduction slag were calculated by using Factsage thermodynamic software. The composition range of the magnesium-slag-based dephosphorizing agent was analyzed by drawing a multiphase diagram of the slag system. The Box–Behnken high-temperature dephosphorization experiment was designed to [...] Read more.
The melting temperature and viscosity of magnesium reduction slag were calculated by using Factsage thermodynamic software. The composition range of the magnesium-slag-based dephosphorizing agent was analyzed by drawing a multiphase diagram of the slag system. The Box–Behnken high-temperature dephosphorization experiment was designed to study the effect of different composition of magnesium-slag-based dephosphorizers on the dephosphorization rate of the steelmaking process. The results show that magnesium slag can be used as a slag-forming agent for smelting low-silicon hot metal to promote slagging, and the effect of each factor on the phosphorus removal rate is ranked, and the results are ω(Fe2O3) > basicity > ω(Al2O3): ω(Al2O3) has no significant effect on the rate of phosphorus removal. When the basicity was 2.8, ω(Fe2O3) was 25.94%, ω(Al2O3) was 6.73%, and ω(MgO) was 6%, the dephosphorization rate reached a maximum of 96.7%, and the error was experimentally verified to be 2.6% from the predicted value, indicating that the model can be optimized to determine the best magnesium-slag-based dephosphorization agent and has a good prediction of dephosphorization effect. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advanced Tundish Metallurgy and Clean Steel Technology—Second Edition)
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12 pages, 3332 KiB  
Article
Evolution of Non-Metallic Inclusions in 27SiMn Steel
by Xinliang Lu, Zhaohui Zhang, Ming Lv, Xintao Li, Baomin Song and Ming Fang
Metals 2022, 12(5), 718; https://doi.org/10.3390/met12050718 - 23 Apr 2022
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 2228
Abstract
To study the evolution of non-metallic inclusions in 27SiMn steel, the 27SiMn steel produced using the LD-LF-CCM process was sampled in various stages in a steel factory. The evolutionary behavior of inclusion in various processes was systematically analyzed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM-EDS), [...] Read more.
To study the evolution of non-metallic inclusions in 27SiMn steel, the 27SiMn steel produced using the LD-LF-CCM process was sampled in various stages in a steel factory. The evolutionary behavior of inclusion in various processes was systematically analyzed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM-EDS), and the total oxygen content and nitrogen content in 27SiMn steel were measured at various production steps. On the basis of the calcium treatment for 27SiMn steel, the equilibrium reactions for Ca-Al were calculated according to the thermodynamic equilibrium model. The results showed that the types of inclusions at the start of LF stations are mainly Al2O3-FeO and MnS-Al2O3. Before calcium treatment, the inclusions are mostly calcium aluminate and CaO-MgO-Al2O3. Compared with the process after soft blowing, the number density of inclusions in tundish increased by 77.88%, possibly due to secondary oxidation. From the soft blowing process to the continuous casting round billet, the inclusions translate into spherical CaO-MgO-Al2O3-SiO2, and a large number of CaS were observed. One part of the CaS precipitated separately, the other part was semi-wrapped with the composite inclusions. At the same time, calcium treatment increases the number density, mean diameter, and the area fraction of inclusions. The mass fraction of T.O. (total oxygen content) increased significantly after soft blowing, and the N content increased greatly from station to tundish. The change trend of N content in steel was basically consistent with that of T.O. content. It was necessary to prevent the secondary oxidation of molten steel during calcium treatment and the casting process. When the liquidus temperature of liquid steel is 1873 K, w[Al] = 0.022%, and w[Ca] in steel is controlled between 1.085 × 10−6 and 4.986 × 10−6, the Al2O3 inclusion degeneration effect is good. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advanced Tundish Metallurgy and Clean Steel Technology—Second Edition)
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