Influence of Soft Reduction on Internal Quality of High Carbon Steel Billets

Centre segregation is the main reason for cup fracture during drawing of high carbon wire rod. Therefore, producing continuously cast billets with very low centre segregation is an important objective. The soft reduction technology is considered to be an effective method to minimize centre segregation. In order to clarify the effectiveness of soft reduction on internal quality of high carbon steel billets, soft reduction was applied in a laboratory casting machine while the solid fraction in the core area of billets was varied. A coupled temperature/displacement Finite Element model was developed to calculate the solid fraction with the commercial software ABAQUS. Centre segregation, centre porosity, homogeneity of elements and equiaxed crystal zone were obviously improved by applying soft reduction, especially when the solid fraction was about 0.9.