Development of Horizontal Continuous Caster and Its Application to Large Cross Sectional Billets and Various Steel Grades

NKK-Davy type No. 4 horizontal continuous caster (HCC) has been installed in Keihin Works in April, 1983. The caster is producing billets such as carbon steels, low alloy steels, stainless steels and high alloy grades billets with 80 up to 330 mm round and 115 mm square. New technological developments have been made as follows: (1) The automatic withdrawal modes for large section billet with high oscillation cycle. (2) The mold conicity design and the break ring made of modified SIALON suitable for the stainless steels and high alloy grades. (3) The hot-shot-blasting machine to eliminate cold shut cracks on the billet surface. The application of HCC billets to seamless tubes and pipes, and wire rods for fine wire drawing and for cold-heading and hot forging has brought excellent results.