Methods for assessment of slab centre segregation as a tool to control slab continuous casting with soft reduction

Slabs produced by continuous casting are characterized by macrosegregation in their central regions. The formation of this macrosegregation depends on many parameters, among others the state of the casting line and the casting technique used. In order to minimize this slab centre macrosegregation for the various steel grades, appropriate samples cut from the slabs have to be subjected to a quantitative assessment. Optical methods of assessment are too inaccurate to serve, for example, as a useful index for controlling soft reduction. For this reason the centre of the slab was analysed using several physical and chemical test methods whose results were then cross-compared. In the process, a combination of ultrasonic porosity tests and spark analyses (OES-PDA) turned out to be the most informative, cost-effective and fastest method for assessing macrosegregations. Thanks to the macrosegregation indexes elaborated on the basis of the test results for the individual slabs it is now possible to find optimum casting parameters such as casting temperature, casting speed etc. for the subsequent melts of the same steel grade and also to use soft reduction for the purpose of minimizing macrosegregation phenomena.