Abstract: The common 300 series stainless steel smelting process under different raw material conditions was summarized. According to the different raw material structure, there are five kinds of 300 series stainless steel smelting processes widely used at present. The advantages and disadvantages of five kinds of 300 series stainless steel smelting processes were summarized, and the cost differences of five kinds of smelting processes based on production data were analyzed. The results show that the process of intermediate frequency furnace has cost advantage in the process with total cold raw materials. Compared with total cold raw materials, the process cost is better when the main raw material is nickel hot metal in small BF or RKEF (rotary klin electric furnace). Among all the raw materials, the most cost-competitive process is to use nickel hot metal of RKEF as the main raw material. The research results of this paper can provide reference for the selection of raw materials and process flow of 300 series stainless steel production.

Key words: 300 series stainless steel, EAF, IFF, pretreatment furnace, AOD furnace