OREANDA-NEWS. October 26, 2012. OMZ Special Steels, part of OMZ Group for the first time ever successfully casted hollow ingot weighing 87 tons from St.3 steel.

The hollow ingot is a forging ingot of large section, with a through axial channel formed during casting. This form of ingot is achieved by setting the special designed metal rod with gas cooling system for its internals in the casting form before casting. This technology allows casting a directional solidification of metal ingots from the outside and from the inside and from the axial channel. Pouring of metal into a casting form is performed with siphon method.

Hollow ingots are used to produce forgings with an axial channel such as rings and have a number of advantages over ingots with traditional geometry: metal ingots produced by this technology, are chemically more consistent due to accelerated directional solidification. In addition, the axial channel can significantly reduce metal consumption.

The St.3 steel was melted in the DSP-120 arc furnace with the use of secondary refining and vacuum degassing on the ladle furnace. After solidification the ingot was delivered to the forging shop for casting the sidewall.

Successful casting of the first hollow ingot allowed OMZ Special Steels exploring the technology of casting heavier ingots, which is innovative for Russian metallurgical companies. Analogues of this technology are implemented only on the modern foreign plants with high level of technology.

OMZ Group is one of the leading heavy industry companies specializing in engineering, production, sales and service support of equipment for nuclear, oil and gas, mining industries, as well as special steel production and industrial services. OMZ Group’s facilities are located in Russia and Czech Republic. The Group is controlled by Gazprombank.