The remelting research center of Xingtai Steel successfully developed hot work die steel of H13 square billet with 160mm×160mm×9m super length recently. This H13 electroslag billet could be directly rolled to H13 bar or wire rod which not only safe blooming cost of customers, but also avoid loss of ends cropping.
It was the first case to produce this overlength H13 square billet with this process which filled up the blank of square billet direct production with electroslag hot work die steel in our country. So far, Xingtai Steel could produce 3 sizes of H13 billets including Ф600mm×6m round billet produced at 1# furnace and Ф600mm×4m round billet (atmosphere protection) produced at 2# furnace developed before.
50mt of H13 square billet produced at 2# furnace with good surface quality, qualified content and compact macrostructure could satisfy customer’s demand at present.
Successful trial production for H13 square billet and round billet has accumulated experience for the development of other grade. They will continuously try to produce high speed tool steel high temperature alloys in the future to research technical parameters of different grade.