THE STUDY OF SCALE FORMATION ON HOT ROLLED INGOTS AND BILLETS

During the heating for rolling, ingots and billets are affected by the chemical action of the heating atmosphere. Between the heating environment elements and steel components there are taking place chemical reactions initiated at the separation surface that may affect a layer in metal of about a few microns to a few millimeters. The thickness of the affected layer is a function of the environment nature, heated material composition, chemical reaction’s type and kinetics, heating rate and temperature. The aim of this paper is to correlate the oxidation and the decarburization processes during the heating of ingots and billets for rolling. The study was made on ingots and billets rolled at the breakdown mill of the Special Steel Complex, Physics Laboratories from MECHEL Targoviste, Romania. The scope of the study is the analysis of the scale obtained from the rolling mill train in order to obtain specific information that will be used in adjusting the rolling parameters for diminishing the oxidation and decarburization and for recycling the scale in electric furnaces.