Continuous electric steelmaking: theoretical and practical design issues

The WORCRA technology, developed by Womer and his team in the 60s and 70s, demonstrated at a 10 tph scale that highly refined steel could be made continuously in one furnace by combining an electric melting bowl with a oxygen refining channel. Modern EAF processes that utilise semicontinuous feed and flat bath operation contain many of the features present in the WORCRA technology. The increasing demand for high quality products and high productivity from EAF steelmakers suggests that continuous electric steelmaking may have some future. This paper shall discuss the theoretical and practical problems associated with developing continuous electric steelmaking into the next century based on the experience from the earlier work and more recent research into continuous steelmaking.