Continuous Casting

The continuous casting process is considered as one of the main breakthroughs in the global steel industry during the recent years. It has a number of technological and economic superiorities that have resulted in improved quality, efficiency, productivity, and cost-effectiveness in steel products. This has resulted in a constant increase

in the volume of the continuous casting products. Moreover, the continuous casting process has gone through significant evolutions in terms of design, casting machinery, metallurgy, qualitative changes in the cooling process, and obtaining a desirable metallurgical structure.

In the continuous casting method, the molten metal is poured from the ladle into the tundish (the middle ladle), and then it is poured from the tundish into the open shaking mold. In this process, the tundish maintains sufficient molten steel to create a constant stream to the mold and a constant

distribution among various lines, even when changing the ladles, which are constantly and regularly brought in from the steelmaking process.

In the mold, the molten steel is solidified in contact with the walls of the bottomless copper mold (at the beginning, in order to cover the bottom of the mold and direct the ingot along the course, an equipment called a false ingot is utilized) which is cooled by water, and it creates a solid coating. The mold is vertically shaken by the mold-shaking table so that the material does not stick to the walls of the mold. Then, the ingot is directed by guiding rollers along the length of a specific arc to reach the pulling and straightening machine. As it is obvious from its name, the pulling and straightening machine is responsible for pulling and straightening the arched ingots during the sequence. After passing through this section, the ingot enters the conveyor tables. After reaching the cutting section, the ingot is cut by the cutting machines based on the specified dimensions, and it ultimately reaches the area for discharging the ingots, where the ingots are delivered to the quality control unit for the final control and inspection.

Under the outlet of the mold, a thin solid layer acts as a container and protects the fluid remaining in the internal section of the layer. Spraying water or a mixture of water and air cools the surface of the layer. The flow rate of the spray is adjusted upon the slightest warming to control the temperature of the surface of the layer, and this continues until the core of the molten material is completely solidified.