Analysis of causes of casting pedestal failures and the measures for increasing its residual lifetime

The paper deals with numerical and experimental analysis of crack initiations causes in the supporting structure of casting pedestal that serves as a mean for transportation of ladles with liquid steel in the technological flow between converters and machines for continuous casting of slabs. From the results of strain-gage measurements accomplished under simulated and operational regimes can be concluded that supporting structure of pedestal is exposed to considerable dynamical loading. On the basis of analysis was found out that taking into account previous loading history of pedestal, the lifetime of traverse beam is exhausted. Consequently, the modifications of pedestal structure were proposed with the aim to allow its further operation.