Continuous Casting: Introduction
After secondary steelmaking, the molten steel is usually continuously cast via a tundish into a water-cooled copper mold causing a thin shell to solidify. This ‘strand’ is then withdrawn through a set of guiding rolls and further cooled by spraying with a fine water mist. The solidified shell continues to thicken until the strand is fully solidified. Finally, the strand is cut into desired lengths and these are either discharged to a storage area or to the hot rolling mill. A wide range of strand dimensions can be cast depending on final application: ‘slabs’ for flat products such as plate and strip, ‘blooms’ for sections such as beams, and ‘billets’ for long products such as wire. Techniques have also been developed to cast steel directly to thin strip (<3 mm thick) and cast strip is now available commercially
