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 Casting**of steel and aluminium strips for sheet making operations. It provides for the friction-free, unconstrained**solidification of a horizontal slab or strip of alloy, followed by in-line rolling down to final gauge sheet. At our**Stinson Laboratories where the McGill Metals Processing Centre melting and casting equipment have been**re-located, a pilot-scale HSBC caster is successfully producing AA6111 aluminium alloy strips. It is now being**upgraded to cast new grades of High Strength, High Ductility Steels (HSHD). These are being intensively**researched, globally. As these new grades of HSHD steels represent a new era for steelmakers, being at least**twice the strength of regular steels, with much greater ductility prior to failure (~+65-100%), they can be used**as thinner sections to lightweight cars, and/or to significantly strengthen critical components. We will work in**parallel 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 the**first 20-30 milleseconds of initial contact of liquid metals and alloys with a cooling sub-surface. This**determines the bottom surface quality of the strip. Similarly, we intend to determine the effects of various**gaseous atmospheres on the surface quality of the upper surface of thin strips being formed, and to measure the**various 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 model**various liquid metal delivery systems, using computational fluid dynamics, and to compare predictions against**our experimental casting work. To enhance the iso-kinetic feeding of metal that is needed for obtaining an**ideal cast slab structure and properties, we will explore the possibility of designing electromagnetic braking to**ensure that all the liquid metal moves at the belt speed. Finally, we intend to develop a fully predictive model**of the HSBC system for aluminum and steel melts, that can be used for design purposes, and scale-up.