Horizontal single belt casting of ferrous and non-ferrous metals

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The Horizontal Single Belt Casting (HSBC) process is a new option available for the Near-Net Shape Castingof steel and aluminium strips for sheet making operations. It provides for the friction-free, unconstrainedsolidification of a horizontal slab or strip of alloy, followed by in-line rolling down to final gauge sheet. At ourStinson Laboratories where the McGill Metals Processing Centre melting and casting equipment have beenre-located, a pilot-scale HSBC caster is successfully producing AA6111 aluminium alloy strips. It is now beingupgraded to cast new grades of High Strength, High Ductility Steels (HSHD). These are being intensivelyresearched, globally. As these new grades of HSHD steels represent a new era for steelmakers, being at leasttwice the strength of regular steels, with much greater ductility prior to failure (~+65-100%), they can be usedas thinner sections to lightweight cars, and/or to significantly strengthen critical components. We will work inparallel on the HSBC machine on these two metals, extending our expertise gained in casting aluminum alloys,to equivalent steel alloy systems. We will continue with our temperature-time measurements, modelling thefirst 20-30 milleseconds of initial contact of liquid metals and alloys with a cooling sub-surface. Thisdetermines the bottom surface quality of the strip. Similarly, we intend to determine the effects of variousgaseous atmospheres on the surface quality of the upper surface of thin strips being formed, and to measure thevarious properties and characteristics of the HSHD steels, 5XXX, and 6XXX series Al alloys being produced.To optimize the melt casting on a water cooled belt, moving at 0.5-1.5 m/s, we intend to mathematically modelvarious liquid metal delivery systems, using computational fluid dynamics, and to compare predictions againstour experimental casting work. To enhance the iso-kinetic feeding of metal that is needed for obtaining anideal cast slab structure and properties, we will explore the possibility of designing electromagnetic braking toensure that all the liquid metal moves at the belt speed. Finally, we intend to develop a fully predictive modelof the HSBC system for aluminum and steel melts, that can be used for design purposes, and scale-up.