DEVELOPMENTS IN CONTINUOUS CASTING.

The proportion of liquid steel processed by continuous casting techniques has slowly risen from around 0. 3 per cent in 1960 to approximately 20 per cent in 1978. At the same time, work has been going on to develop horizontal continuous casting to exploit the many practical advantages promised. And considerable success has been achieved in this area, particularly by Davy-Loewy and latterly in co-operation with Nippon Kokan KK in Japan. Davy-Loewy came up with the Horicast horizontal continuous casting machine and has a twin-strand installation working on production at Nippon Kokan. It is producing 115 mm square strands at casting speeds between 3 and 3. 5 m/min, and 75 mm square sections at 4 m/min. The latter is the maximum speed capability of the plant, and is felt to be as high as would normally be expected of a billet caster to the Horicast specification. Work on continuous casting of brass rod and sections in the smaller sizes, as opposed to working larger billets by hot extrusion, is also progressing. S R Cochrane and J Riley of Rautomead of Dundee, and R W Johnson of Dundee Technology, of Technology, have reported on the development of a continuous casting process (also horizontal) which is aimed at allowing small and medium size users to produce brass rods and sections in-house.