PAO Severstal, one of the world's largest vertically integrated steel and mining companies, has modernized the equipment used in prototyping new types of products (NWP) and is mastering its capabilities. Investments in the development of opportunities for experiments amounted to more than 37 million rubles.

The prototyping process was implemented at the industrial sites of Severstal enterprises in Cherepovets. It includes smelting in the furnaces of the machine-building center "SSM-Tyazhmash" and rolling of experimental samples on the equipment of Severstal-metiz's profiled sections (CSFP).

Smelting capabilities at the machine-building center "SSM-Tyazhmash" were expanded by the installation of a new vacuum furnace with a capacity of 250 kilograms. Previously, smelting was carried out in an open-type induction furnace, which did not allow to exclude oxidation processes. This had a negative effect on the melt and limited the production of a number of steel grades that were considered as CWP. The new unit eliminates the influence of the atmosphere, and also allows you to get a cleaner alloy for non-metallic inclusions and dissolved gases. The use of a vacuum furnace will make it possible to bring prototypes closer to the products that will be obtained on units of a real production chain. At the moment, the process of adjusting the equipment and mastering its capabilities is underway.

The capacities of the Severstal-Metiz Center have also been modernized. Here is a set of equipment that is unique for Russia and Europe, which makes it possible to work out the second stage of prototyping - cold and hot rolling operations. The existing hot rolling mill was supplemented with reheating furnaces, tempering furnaces and a laminar cooling unit. Such a composition of the equipment makes it possible to provide heating of the samples to a given temperature, to cool the workpiece at the outlet with the required speed and to give the sample its final properties. This made it possible to fairly accurately simulate the technological operations of the real production of the Cherepovets Iron and Steel Works.

Severstal is strategically interested in accelerating the development of new types of products for its customers. Continuous improvement of the prototyping complex as a flexible tool for testing our hypotheses confirms these intentions. The composition of the equipment is close to real production and allows you to check the complex of product properties in small batches, adjust and correct the chemical composition, smelting and rolling modes. The presence of such a complex near our key units is not only more cost-effective in comparison with the services of external organizations, but also faster, easier in terms of process control and management. Since 2018, based on the results of prototyping on our own equipment, we have developed 35 fundamentally new products. The updated composition of the equipment now, among other things, allows us to work with a previously inaccessible range: corrosion-resistant steel grades, steels of the IF type - and to obtain structure-sensitive mechanical characteristics, such as impact strength " , - notes Pyotr Mishnev, Director of Technical Development and Quality, Severstal Russian Steel Division.

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