A Prediction Model for Internal Cracks during Slab Continuous Casting

Slab continuous casting internal cracking is a common quality defect in the production process. The ability to predict the quality of each continuous casting product and assess whether it is suitable for hot delivery or needs to be cleaned down will greatly increase the rolled product rate and reduce the scrap rate and production management cost. According to the quality defects of internal cracks during slab continuous casting and based on the solidification and heat transfer simulations, stress and strain calculations and theoretical analysis of metallurgical processes related to continuous casting combined with an abnormal casting event expert system, the internal crack generation index of the slice unit is used to predict the crack occurrence rating of each sized slab. Moreover, the internal crack prediction model for the slab is successfully developed and applied in a domestic steel mill. The accuracy of the model prediction reached 86.85%. This method achieved the organic combination of theoretical analysis and an expert system and provides an important theoretical tool for the prediction of crack quality defects in slab continuous casting; the method can be applied in slab continuous casting production.