Continuous Casting of Steel PDF

Historical Background

For well over a century the traditional method for the conversion of steel from the liquid phase to the solid phase was by the use of ingot moulds. Each mould consists of cast iron forming a thick walled container open at the top and set up before casting on large cast iron 'bottom plates' or 'stools'. Figure 1.1 shows several different designs of ingot moulds.

Each ingot was cast independently, the number of ingots from a single ladle of liquid steel depending on the ladle size and the size of each individual ingot. After the steel within the ingot mould had solidified the ingot moulds were removed using a 'stripping' crane and the ingots were then charged into soaking pits so that they could be reheated for rolling to semi-finished or finished products. Even as early as the nineteenth century the attraction of solidifying steel using a more continuous method was recognised and some of the methods attempted by early workers such as G E Sellars (1840),J Laing (1843)and H Bessemer (1846)were applied to the casting of non-ferrous metals with low melting points but not in the case of steel due to the many technical problems associated with the higher temperatures involved and the low thermal conductivity of steel

Edited by: W.R. Irving