Continuous Casting

Book excerpt: Continuous casting is an industrial process whereby molten metal is solidified into a semi-finished billet, bloom, or slab for subsequent rolling in finishing mills; it is the most frequently used process to cast not only steel, but also aluminium and copper alloys. Since its widespread introduction for steel in the 1950s, it has evolved to achieve improved yield, quality, productivity and cost efficiency. It allows lower-cost production of metal sections with better quality, due to the inherently lower costs of continuous, standardized production of a product, as well as providing increased control over the process through automation. Nevertheless, challenges remain and new ones appear, as ways are sought to minimize casting defects and to cast alloys that could originally only be cast via other means. This Special Issue of the journal "Metals" consists of 14 research articles that cover many aspects of experimental work and theoretical modelling related to the ongoing development of continuous casting processes.