A method of casting a metal alloy ingot, including the following steps: providing a one side open-ended mould including a plurality of sides and a bottom plate defining a mould cavity with a mould opening, the open-ended mould being pivotable around a horizontal rotational axis between a position so that the mould opening points upwards and a position so that the mould opening points side-wards or down-wards; positioning the open-ended mould such that the mould opening points side-wards or down-wards; providing a casting container with an upwardly positioned aperture; filling the casting container with molten metal for one casting operation; coupling the casting container to the open-ended mould so that the casting container is located below the mould while the mould opening points side-wards or down-wards; rotating the open-ended mould together with the casting container around the horizontal rotational axis for approximately 90° to 180° from a position whereby the mould opening points side-wards or down-wards to a position whereby the mould opening points upwards such that the molten metal is conveyed through the mould opening into the open-ended mould until reaching a desired thickness, whereby the molten metal in the open-ended mould is cooled directionally through its thickness where the solidification front remains substantially monoaxial.

A method of manufacturing semi-solidified molten metal includes a step of keeping discharging inert gas from a probe in a continuous manner, and inserting the probe into molten metal held at a temperature that is higher than a temperature of the probe and that is equal to or higher than a liquidus-line temperature, a step of extracting the inserted probe from the molten metal such that at least part of a region of a surface of the inserted probe that is in contact with the molten metal is exposed from the molten metal, and a step of inserting the extracted probe again into the molten metal.

An apparatus for continuous casting a metal strip and reducing snake eggs in the metal strip. A pair of counter rotating casting rolls through which a thin strip can be cast are provided. A metal delivery system is disposed above the nip for discharging molten metal into a casting pool supported on the rolls. A pair of side dam holders and a pair of side dams are assembled adjacent each end portion of the rolls. Each side dam holder is tapered and dovetails with an adjacent side dam to confine the casting pool of molten metal supported on casting surfaces of the rolls. An oscillation mechanism provides lateral oscillation to each side dam and side dam holder at a frequency 2-50 hertz and with an amplitude 100-2000 μm during casting.

In a casting device, positions of discharge ends discharging cooling gas, of respective gas supply nozzles are adjusted in response to movement of a mold. This makes it possible to stably achieve high cooling performance for the mold by blowing of the cooling gas. To adjust the positions of the respective discharge ends, the gas supply nozzles are advanced or retreated, or are expanded or contracted. Further, a cooling chamber may include a radiation cooling portion that cools the mold by radiation, and the radiation cooling portion is disposed below the gas supply nozzles that are provided directly below a heat shielding body partitioning a heating chamber and the cooling chamber.

An injection device of light metal injection molding machine and an injection control method thereof are provided, in which a melt in a supply unit is supplied into an injection unit through a communication passage, a plunger of the injection unit is retracted to measure the melt, the communication passage is closed, and the plunger is advanced to inject the melt into a mold device through an injection nozzle of the injection unit. After the injection and before the measurement, the plunger is advanced under a pressure at which the melt does not come out from the injection nozzle to make the melt in the injection unit flow back into the supply unit through the opened communication passage.

Steam exhaust ports are located around a perimeter of a direct chill casting pit, at various locations from below the top of the pit to the pit bottom to rapidly remove steam from the casting pit with addition of dry excess air. Gas introduction ports are also located around a perimeter of the casting pit and configured to introduce an inert gas into the casting pit interior.

A process for producing metal ingots includes the steps of: a) filling at least one ingot mould at a filling temperature with at least one metal charge in the solid state, which has a melting temperature higher than ambient temperature, b) melting the metal charge by heating the ingot mould to a heating temperature higher than or equal to the melting temperature of the metal charge, c) solidifying the molten metal charge into an ingot by cooling the ingot mould to a cooling temperature lower than the melting temperature of the metal charge and higher than the ambient temperature, d) extracting the ingot from the ingot mould at an extraction temperature, and e) repeating steps a) to d). At steady state, both the filling temperature and the extraction temperature are lower than or equal to the cooling temperature and higher than the ambient temperature.

A foundry casting system and process employs an inert gas delivery and recovery system for casting parts which results in cast parts having improved metalurgical characteristics. The system may be employed in sand, die casting, semi-permanent and permanent casting environments. Pressurized inert gas may be diffused into the mold before, during and after the metal pouring step. The resulting casting is free from oxides and dissolved hydrogen gas as they are removed from the mold cavity. This results in higher quality castings as well as increased production output due to faster cooling cycles.

A die-casting magnesium alloy. The die-casting magnesium alloy comprises, by mass percent, 1% to 5% of La, 0.5% to 3% of Zn, 0.1% to 2% of Ca, 0.1% to 1% of Mn and the balance Mg and other inevitable impurities. The die-casting magnesium alloy manufacturing method comprises smelting, refinement and die-casting. The die-casting magnesium alloy has good mechanical performance, die-casting performance and heat conduction performance.

A method for manufacturing a quasicrystal and alumina mixture particles reinforced magnesium matrix composite, includes manufacturing a quasicrystal and alumina mixture particles reinforcement phase, including preparing raw materials for the quasicrystal and alumina mixture particles reinforcement phase including a pure magnesium ingot, a pure zinc ingot, a magnesium-yttrium alloy in which the content of yttrium is 25% by weight, and nanometer alumina particles, the elements having the following proportion by weight 40 parts of magnesium, 50-60 parts of zinc, 5-10 parts of yttrium and 8-20 parts of nanometer alumina particles of which the diameter is 20-30 nm, pretreating the metal raw materials, cutting the pure magnesium ingot, the pure zinc ingot and the magnesium-yttrium alloy into blocks, removing oxides attached on the surface of each metal block, placing the blocks into a resistance furnace to preheat at 180 C. to 200 C., and filtering out the absolute ethyl alcohol after standing, and drying.