A steel plant for the production of long metal products includes a continuous casting machine and a rolling mill disposed contiguous and in direct succession downstream of the continuous casting machine. The continuous casting machine is provided with at least two casting lines and the rolling mill is provided with at least two rolling lines. The plant includes a single feed apparatus for feeding molten metal, and the at least two casting lines are configured to receive molten metal from the single feed apparatus.

A system and method for continuous casting. The system includes a melt chamber, a withdrawal chamber, and a secondary chamber therebetween. The melt chamber can maintain a melting pressure and the withdrawal chamber can attain atmospheric pressure. The secondary chamber can include regions that can be adjusted to different pressures. During continuous casting operations, the first region adjacent to the melt chamber can be adjusted to a pressure that is at least slightly greater than the melting pressure; the pressure in subsequent regions can be sequentially decreased and then sequentially increased. The pressure in the final region can be at least slightly greater than atmospheric pressure. The differential pressures can form a dynamic airlock between the melt chamber and the withdrawal chamber, which can prevent infiltration of the melt chamber by non-inert gas in the atmosphere, and thus can prevent contamination of reactive materials in the melt chamber.

A system and method for sensing the position of an ingot within a segmented mold of a vacuum metallurgical system. An inductive sensory system measures the variations in current between a power source and load of an induction heating coil. The system and method is particularly suitable for determining the position of an ingot within a melting system mold where the mold has a relatively reduced or small cross-sectional area.

A method for operating a combined casting/rolling installation: A casting machine (4) of the combined installation (2) produces a cast product (40) and a rolling mill (6, 8) of the installation (2) produces a rolled product (42a, 42b) from the cast product (40). The installation (2) has a control device (12) with a measuring unit (14) and a controller (16). The measuring unit (14) detects a rolled-product property, generates a measurement signal dependent on that property and transmits the measurement signal to the controller (16), and the controller (16) uses the measurement signal to generate a control signal for the casting machine (4) based on a control algorithm and transmits the control signal to the casting machine (4) which uses the control signal to set a casting parameter. The detected rolled-product property is a temperature profile of the rolled product (42a, 42b) in the width direction thereof and the casting parameter that is set by the casting machine (4) using the control signal is a cooling parameter of the casting machine (4).

A monitoring system may monitor a casting environment, for example, including a mold. The monitoring system may include a camera and a computer system. The camera may be positioned to capture or detect optical data associated with one or more components in a casting environment. The camera may send the optical data to the computer system and the computer system may generate a profile associated with the casting environment. The profile may be compared with a baseline profile to determine whether a particular event has occurred. Based on the event that may have occurred, operating instructions can be generated. The operating instructions may be used to adjust the casting process.

A slab continuous casting apparatus according to this invention is configured to supply molten metal from a tundish to a slab water-cooled mold through at least an upper nozzle, a stopper, and an immersion nozzle and solidify the molten metal, and is provided with an immersion nozzle quick replacement mechanism. The slab continuous casting apparatus includes a discharge direction change mechanism that is provided between the stopper and the immersion nozzle and is capable of freely changing a discharge angle of the molten metal in a horizontal cross-section during casting.

Production plant of metal rods, casting machine, casting process and control method of at least three electromagnetic stirrer devices, wherein one provides at least one phase of switching between two operating configurations of the electromagnetic stirrer devices of which a first operating configuration with the generation of a rotating electromagnetic field inducing in the metallic material in the molten state a rotational motion and a second operating configuration with the generation of a linear electromagnetic field inducing in the metallic material in the molten state a linear motion.

This disclosure concerns methods and apparatus for continuously casting thin strip where one or more expansion rings are positioned within at least one of a pair of casting rolls, and automatically measuring a thickness of the cast strip close to the first side edge of the strip using at least one sensor, and if the thickness measured is too thin, automatically decreasing the radial dimension of the expansion ring arranged in close proximity to the first side edge to cause the cylindrical tube to contract and increase the thickness of the cast strip during casting, and if the thickness measured indicates that the thickness of the cast strip is too thick, automatically increasing the radial dimension of the expansion ring arranged in close proximity to the first side edge to cause the cylindrical tube to expand and reduce the thickness of the cast strip during casting.

A system and method for continuous casting. The system includes a melt chamber, a withdrawal chamber, and a secondary chamber therebetween. The melt chamber can maintain a melting pressure and the withdrawal chamber can attain atmospheric pressure. The secondary chamber can include regions that can be adjusted to different pressures. During continuous casting operations, the first region adjacent to the melt chamber can be adjusted to a pressure that is at least slightly greater than the melting pressure; the pressure in subsequent regions can be sequentially decreased and then sequentially increased. The pressure in the final region can be at least slightly greater than atmospheric pressure. The differential pressures can form a dynamic airlock between the melt chamber and the withdrawal chamber, which can prevent infiltration of the melt chamber by non-inert gas in the atmosphere, and thus can prevent contamination of reactive materials in the melt chamber.

A method and a device for producing ingots from metal or metal alloy. The method and the device are suitable for producing ingots from nickel, titanium, vanadium, niobium, tantalum, zirconium, hafnium, or alloys thereof and alloys with said metals in continuous casting methods. The device has an ingot chamber, which is suitable for receiving multiple cast ingots and for allowing the ingots to cool in the ingot chamber. For this purpose, the ingots are arranged in the ingot chamber in a horizontally movable manner on ingot holding means.