Continuous casting round billet crystallizer copper tube
The copper tube for the continuous casting round billet mold is a key component of the mold during the continuous steel casting process. It comes into direct contact with the hot molten steel. Forced cooling by cooling water allows the molten steel to initially solidify within the tube, forming a billet shell. This crucial equipment ensures smooth continuous casting and ensures the quality of the cast billets. Typically made of high-purity copper or phosphorus-deoxidized copper, the copper tube offers excellent thermal conductivity, high-temperature strength, and wear resistance, enabling long-term, stable operation in high-temperature and high-pressure environments. Its inner wall often undergoes special treatments, such as coating or surface modification, to enhance wear resistance and thermal shock resistance, extending its service life.
The production process of continuous casting round billet crystallizer copper tubes is complex and has high technical requirements. It mainly includes smelting, ingot casting, extrusion, stretching, heat treatment, surface treatment and other links. First, high-purity electrolytic copper or phosphorus deoxidized copper is selected as raw material and put into the furnace for smelting. The smelting temperature and time are strictly controlled to ensure that the copper liquid is pure and the composition is uniform. After smelting is completed, the copper liquid is cast into ingots. The ingots need to undergo homogenization annealing to eliminate internal stress and structural defects. Subsequently, the ingots are processed into copper tube blanks by hot extrusion. During the extrusion process, the extrusion temperature, speed and deformation must be controlled to ensure the dimensional accuracy and structural properties of the copper tube blanks. Next, the copper tube blank enters the stretching process. Through multiple cold stretching passes, the copper tube is gradually processed to the required size and wall thickness. Annealing treatment is required after each stretching pass to eliminate work hardening and restore the plasticity of the material. Finally, the copper tube is surface treated, such as nickel plating, chrome plating or spraying wear-resistant coating, to improve its wear resistance and thermal shock resistance, and precision processing and quality inspection are carried out to ensure that the product meets the requirements of continuous casting production.
The copper tubes in the continuous casting round billet mold play a vital role in the continuous steel casting process, and their performance directly affects the quality and production efficiency of the ingot. During the continuous casting process, high-temperature molten steel enters the mold copper tubes and comes into contact with the inner wall of the tubes. The copper tubes’ thermal conductivity transfers heat to the cooling water, causing the molten steel to rapidly solidify within the tubes, forming a shell of a certain thickness. As the billet drawing machine pulls, the solidified shell is pulled out of the mold copper tubes and into the subsequent secondary cooling area for further solidification. The better the thermal conductivity of the mold copper tubes, the faster the molten steel solidifies, and the more uniform the shell formation, which can effectively reduce the occurrence of surface defects such as cracks and shrinkage cavities on the ingot. At the same time, the dimensional accuracy and surface quality of the copper tubes also affect the dimensional accuracy and surface quality of the ingots, necessitating extremely high manufacturing precision requirements for the mold copper tubes.
The service life of the copper tube of the continuous casting round billet crystallizer is an important indicator to measure its performance. The factors affecting its service life mainly include material, surface treatment, and operating conditions. In terms of material, copper tubes made of high-purity copper or phosphorus-deoxidized copper have better thermal conductivity and high-temperature strength, which can extend the service life. In terms of surface treatment, the wear resistance and thermal shock resistance of copper tubes treated by plating or surface modification are significantly improved, which can reduce the wear and thermal shock of molten steel on the inner wall of the copper tube and extend the service life. In terms of operating conditions, parameters such as the water quality, flow rate, and temperature of the cooling water will also affect the service life of the copper tube. Good cooling conditions can effectively reduce the operating temperature of the copper tube and reduce thermal fatigue damage. In addition, process parameters such as the billet drawing speed and molten steel temperature will also affect the service life of the copper tube. Reasonable process parameters can extend the service life of the copper tube.
With the continuous advancement of continuous casting technology, the performance requirements for copper tubes used in continuous casting round billet molds are becoming increasingly stringent. To improve billet quality and production efficiency, manufacturers are continuously developing new materials and manufacturing processes. For example, they are using dispersion-strengthened copper alloys to manufacture copper tubes for molds, enhancing their high-temperature strength and wear resistance. Advanced surface treatment techniques, such as physical vapor deposition and chemical vapor deposition, are also being used to improve the wear resistance and thermal shock resistance of the tube’s inner wall. Furthermore, to meet the demands of high-efficiency continuous casting and near-net-shape continuous casting, manufacturers are developing copper tubes with specialized shapes and structures, such as special-shaped mold tubes and high-efficiency cooling mold tubes, to improve billet quality and production efficiency. In the future, as the steel industry continues to develop, market demand for copper tubes for continuous casting round billet molds will continue to grow, and their performance and quality will continue to improve, providing strong support for the development of the steel industry.
