Sichuan Metallurgical Group’s plant in Dugang has moved to greener and super-efficient production.

An electric arc furnace incorporating CISDI’s AutoARC expertise is transforming the steelworks - and is all set to achieve a succession of major breakthroughs in energy saving and speed.

The furnace has passed its function tests and achieved all performance indicators - an average tap-to-tap time of just 35 minutes, 335kWh per tonne of liquid steel electricity consumption and electrode consumption of less than 1kg per tonne of liquid steel.

CISDI-AutoARC features a number of new technologies for superior scrap preheating, cascade distribution and continuous charging of raw materials, flat bath melting and ultra-low emissions.

Systematic innovations across the board - process, equipment, product and environmental - solve the problems which have long been associated with electric furnaces which are fully charged by scrap - high energy consumption, unstable quality and dioxin pollution.

AutoARC furnaces run with world-class performance indicators.

Working to an efficient, low-carbon and intelligent electric furnace design concept, CISDI has developed the second generation of green, super-efficient electric furnaces with an AC power supply, and third generation furnaces with a DC, IGBT flexible power supply.

Other technical advancements include facilitating the recovery of excess heat from a furnace’s high-temperature fume and utilising it for power generation, plus digital, intelligent melting.

These unique breakthroughs from CISDI are helping the Chinese steel sector to build benchmark mini-mill production lines and energy-conserving, low-carbon melting. 

Melting in progress at the Dugang CISDI-AutoARC electric furnace