State of the Art Technology in Slab Continuous Casting:

Abstract

Over the last 50 years, numerous slab continuous casters have been widely installed all over the world to take advantage of the enhanced productivity, yield, energy efficiency, and cost efficiency. To meet a variety of product quality demands from the steel market, the slab continuous casting process has been diversified into several types. In the 1960s, 200–300 mm thickness slab casters opened the continuous casting era by substituting the ingot process widely applied at that time, and now the major part of slab production is for the hot strip rolling. The thick slab of 400–600 mm thickness casting process with a casting speed range of 0.2–0.6 m/min was introduced to guarantee the internal quality of heavy gauge plates for the energy industry and shipbuilding applications. For the ultra-thick, over 600 mm, the semi-continuous casting technology with a casting speed of 0.05–0.2 m/min has been developed as an alternative way to replace the ingot process, with higher yield and productivity compared to the case of the ingot process.