Etteplan’s Oulu office planned the revamping of secondary cooling for a continuous casting machine at a steel mill operating in Anshan, northern China. The project agreed by Rautaruukki was completed at the beginning of 2004 and it involved renewing the nozzles in secondary cooling for the continuous casting machine and designing the nozzle sequence as well as delivering the secondary cooling model.

The dynamic model was developed at Rautaruukki’s Raahe continuous casting plant in cooperation with Finnish companies, universities and TEKES, the National Technology Agency of Finland. Etteplan was responsible for project management, designing nozzle sequence, training in Finland and China and for supervising installation during commissioning.

Etteplan’s strength was its previous experience gained from similar assignments. The project aimed at upgrading the quality of steel slabs, and this objective was achieved. The project aided the customer to select suitable secondary cooling nozzles, and the secondary cooling control model made it possible to reduce defects in slabs.

Besides the site mentioned above, Etteplan has also planned the refurbishment of a secondary cooling system for continuous casting machines at a few other steel mills in China and Russia.