Development of steel continuous casting at the Nizhny Tagil steel-works

Steel continuous casting is one of fundamentals of modern steel industry. Specialists of Nizhny Tagil steel-works (NTMK) made an important contribution to the process perfection. The one-strand slab CCM of curvilinear type with radial mold and slab straightening by multipoint curve, designed and manufactured at Uralmashzavod, became a prototype for many machines, which were later manufactured at domestic and foreign steel-works in the end of 60th of the previous century. In the process of mastering of CCMs, which were put into operation within the programs of the plant modernization and transferring to BOF production with steel continuous casting, the CCMs were significantly modernized and technology of casting was perfected. To bring down the impact on the solidifying billet peel and decrease a billet swell, the scheme of the supporting rollers location was changed, which enabled to increase the length of the supported zone. A principally new scheme of billets cooling was implemented, which ensured a softer and uniform secondary cooling due to water-air “fog”. To create optimal conditions of axis zone forming during production of round billets of 430 mm diameter, a technology of protective heat screens application was used. The protective screens were installed in the end of ingot solidification zone. A large work was done on determination of optimal technological casting parameters – temperature and speed modes, types of slag forming mixtures, types of heat-insulating mixtures, methods of metal protection in the process of casting. As a result of the work done, at EVRAZ NTMK a complex of steel continuous casting was created, which enables to be flexible depending on the varying situation at the market and to produce continuously casted billets of various dimensions and wide range of steel grades.

Mechanical and mathematical research of local deformations of a steel roller shell with a variable geometry of contact surface

The article is devoted to solving the fundamental and applied problem of nonlinear structural mechanics of machines by introducing into the drum two additional stop cylinders with supporting rollers at the end and adjustable length, providing a given elliptical or circular shape of a flexible shell with a smoothly variable geometry in the area of its contact with compacted pavement material. Compaction of soil, gravel and asphalt concrete in the sphere of road is not only an integral part of the technological process of the roadbed, road foundation and surface construction, but it is actually the main operation to ensure their strength, stability and durability. The quality, cost and speed of road construction, the possibility of using fundamentally new technologies, structures and materials is largely determined by the availability of modern road machinery.

Low-Frequency Vibration Testing of Huge Bucket Wheel Excavator Based on Step-Decay Signals

The low-frequency vibration of the bucket wheel excavator has an important impact on the fatigue life of the structures. For conventional vibration testing methods, it is difficult and expensive to excite the overall low-frequency vibration of the whole machine. Hence, in this paper, the excitation method that uses the belt-supporting rollers on the boom as an exciter is tried to excite the low-frequency vibration, so that the low natural frequencies can be identified by Fourier transforming the free decay signals caused by the sudden power off. By this method, the first five natural frequencies are obtained, and the results are verified through corresponding computational numerical model of the bucket wheel excavator. It can be concluded that the proposed testing method can achieve the same accuracy but is much more convenient and costs less than existing methods.

Mathematical Modelling of the Process of Conveyor Belt Damage Caused by the Impact Stress

The article presents the results of the mathematical modelling of the strain and deformation conditions in the steel-cord conveyor belt of the ST 2000 and ST 2500 types, applying the Finite Element Method. The output of the model is identification of the maximum magnitude of the activated dynamic force in the conveyor belt on the basis of the analysis of vertical shifts of the loaded point, vertical strains in the area of supporting rollers, and the maximum principal strains.