The Steel Authority of India Ltd. (SAIL) has awarded Danieli Davy Distington an order for a new slab casting machine. The new caster will be installed in the Bhilai Steel Plant (BSP), located in the State of Madhyapradesh, India.

The Danieli-led consortium will supply, on a turnkey basis, a new slab casting plant designed for the production of one million tonnes/year of qualified slabs. The product mix for the facility includes mild, low, medium, peritectic and high carbon steel grades, high tensile steels, boiler grades, API and EDD steels. The caster will produce slab that are 220-mm thick and 1100- to 1800-mm wide.

The new casting machine is a vertical-curved design with multiple-point bending and unbending roll diagram. The supported machine length exceeds 33 meters to provide a maximum casting speed of 2 meters/minute. The machine features a state-of-the art INMO mould, including in-line width adjustment during casting, as well as an hydraulically operated oscillator, and OPTIMUM type segments that will be capable of facilitating Dynamic Soft Reduction in the future.

The equipment also includes an in-mould advanced breakout prevention system, and a mould level control system that is based on slide gate and eddy current sensor. Dynamic model controlled air-mist secondary cooling will also be provided, as well as a complete L1 and L2 automaton system, including mathematical models for the Dynamic Secondary Cooling (DSC) system.

In addition to the complete caster technological equipment, the contract also covers the supply and construction of all related auxiliary equipment and plants such as civil works, dedicated water treatment plant, gas and compressed air plants, and complete electrical distribution up to the substation.