Development of a New Steelmaking Process.

In Japan, steelmaking of electric arc furnace melting have two problems. (1)Electricity cost in the day-time is much more expensive than that in the night-time. (2)It is difficult to use much old scraps because of their tramp elements increasing in the scrap. Daido Steel has developed the new vessel called "SV" (SV: Storage Vessel). The SV can keep molten steel melted during the night-time. In the day-time, the molten steel stored in the SV is tapped and mixed with scraps in the electric arc furnace. This process is called "AN" (AN: Anticipate the Next) process in Daido Steel. AN process can reduce the electric power consumption considerably in the day-time. On the other hand, molten steel melted during the night-time is mixed in the SV, and SV enables tramp elements to be uniform. AN process makes it possible to decrease deviation of the tramp element. In this paper, the outline of AN process is described, and some operational results are also reported herein.