ABB has been awarded a major contract by Primetals Technologies — leader in the fields of engineering, plant building, and the provision of lifecycle services for the metals industry — to help optimise production at ThyssenKrupp Steel Europe’s (tkSE) Duisburg-Bruckhausen plant in Germany, using the proprietary ABB Flow Control Mold (FC Mold) electromagnetic stirring and braking technology to achieve higher-quality steel produced faster and at lower cost.

The construction of a casting rolling mill and the upgrade of an existing continuous casting plant is part of a wider project awarded to Primetals Technologies, a global leader in plant engineering for the metals industry. The project is part of tkSE’s ‘Strategy 20-30’, which aims to optimise operations for automotive customers seeking improved surfaces, thinner steels and high-performance steels that meet crash safety standards in the growing e-mobility market.

By using FC Mold G3 (generation 3), ThyssenKrupp can prevent gas bubbles and impurities from becoming trapped in the solidifying steel as the technology will offer simultaneous stirring and braking from one fixed position on the caster.

In continuous slab casting, conditions in the meniscus area of the solidifying steel are crucial to determining end-product quality and have a major impact on productivity and overall operating costs. Integrated with the caster, FC Mold uses electromagnetic fields to control meniscus flow speed and fluctuations, thereby enabling improved process control and increased resource efficiency, while requiring very little maintenance yet typically achieving a long lifespan.

With an installed base at 40 sites worldwide, performance improvements delivered by FC Mold technology are well-proven. Typically, these include a 50% reduction in defects and up to an 80% reduction in rejected or downgraded product. In addition, FC Mold supports higher casting speeds.

Zaeim Mehraban, ABB’s global sales manager, metallurgy products, said: “By significantly reducing defects, rejects and downgrades, the FC Mold will improve cost and resource-efficiency at tkSE, thereby supporting both sustainability and profitability goals, while contributing to the company’s ‘Strategy 20-30’ ambitions to meet customer requirements for higher-performance steel grades.

“Backed by decades of experience working with plant builders, like Primetals, and knowledge of metallurgical processes such as slab casting from numerous installations worldwide, ABB continues to devise solutions to solve bottlenecks in steel and aluminium manufacturing processes and repeatedly prove they are effective.”

ThyssenKrupp has set itself the goal of producing three million tons of CO₂-neutral steel a year by 2030 as the industry moves towards climate-neutral steel production by 2050, in line with the UN Paris Agreement.