Process of solidifying molten metal
AssigneeOlsson International Inc.
InventorErik Allan Olsson
Life of this patent
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Abstract
To take advantage of the fact that molten metal which first solidifies against a mold surface has better grain structure and closer chemical identity to the molten metal than the inner portions of a casting, a skin or thin layer of metal forming on a cold surface, such as a revolving water-cooled roll partly immersed in molten metal, is continuously stripped from said surface and almost immediately welded or fused under pressure to the surface of similarly-formed layers to make a unitary finished or semi-finished product. The layers so welded together may be separately formed, or comprise parts of a single layer folded or bent into surface-to-surface contact.
Claims8
A metallurgical process for the production of a semi-finished product for subsequent rolling or forging into a finished product, wherein
- a. a melt of molten steel is simultaneously and continuously formed on moving chill surfaces into a plurality of layers of substantially uniformly fine grain structure throughout the thickness of each layer and stripping the layers from the chill surfaces as they are formed,
- b. bringing such layers together in face-to-face contact when they are at the solidus temperature where the metal in the layers shows no apparent liquid at the surface but before it has developed sufficient plasticity for hot rolling,
- c. pressing the contacting layers together with a pressure only sufficient to reduce the thickness of the combined layers not more than 2% of the combined thickness, and
- d. effecting the forming of the layers, the bringing them together and pressing them being effected in a common enclosure in which the hot metal is constantly protected by an inert atmosphere and removing the composite body so formed from said atmosphere only when it has cooled to at least a normal hot rolling temperature.
The metallurgical process in which several layers of metal are continuously formed from solidification of several layers of metal on a chilled surface having a ridge and valley contour where the layers formed thereon are joined along their side edges alternately at the peaks and valleys, the layers so formed being stripped from the surface on which they are formed and, as they solidify to the solidus state but are still above a plastic hot rolling state, being then pressed into flat face-to-face contact with a pressure sufficient to effect welding of the layers into an integral body but to an extent where the metal, still too hot to have the required plastic structure for hot rolling undergoes a reduction in the range of 0.2% to 2% of the combined thickness of the layers.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.