RECEIVING COPPER PIPE BLANKET ON A CONTINUOUS HORIZONTAL CASTING PLANT INTENDED FOR FURTHER COLD ROLLING

Abstract

The paper highlights that in the conditions of constant changes in the situation on the world markets of metallurgical products and the growing level of competition, manufacturers of copper and its alloys face an urgent task of increasing production efficiency and ensuring the production of competitive products of the required quality.It is shown that further increasing the competitiveness of Ukrainian copper products by minimizing material and energy costs for its production is a complex task, the relevance of the solution of which for Ukraine is determined both by the need to utilize low-grade domestic scrap metal and the desire to produce final products that meet global requirements.It is highlighted that the Ukrainian copper industry does not have significant reserves of ore raw materials and largely depends on the price situation on the world market. The stability of enterprises producing copper products can ensure a reorientation to internal sources of copper raw materials (scrap metal) and the expansion of consumption in Ukraine by developing new types of products.It has been established that one of the promising areas of development of enterprises producing copper is the creation of highly efficient modules for refined copper based on domestic scrap metal. The key link of such modules, which largely determines the quality of copper products, is the pouring of liquid melt on horizontal continuous casting machines (HCM).The work substantiates and improves the technology and parameters of the process of semi-continuous pouring of fire-refined copper.It is shown that the work is relevant and related to the main state programs for the development of the mining and metallurgical complex.It is determined that the solution of scientific and technical tasks in this area will allow to improve the quality of copper billets and the conditions for their formation. Experimental work on the casting of a copper pipe billet measuring 76×56 mm was carried out in industrial conditions.It is shown that the optimal technological parameters selected in the work ensure the production of a high-quality billet with a fine-grained homogeneous structure, suitable for further rolling.The conditions that form the inhomogeneity of the macrostructure in the cross-section of the cast billet are established.The conditions and reasons that contribute to the formation of cracks on the outer surface of the billet are shown. It is found that the technical condition of the drawing machine does not allow maintaining a constant technological parameter such as the value of the drawing step.