Thermally insulating material

Abstract

A tile for lining an ingot mould or a hot-top box for the ingot mould has a back face for abutting the mould or box wall and four regions defined by the profiling of the front face. The lower region and a higher region are shaped so as to enable the molten metal within the mould or box to solidify with a "bottle-top" structure. An upper region above the higher region is shaped to maintain any anti-piping compound completely covering the molten metal as it solidifies. There is a top region above the upper region and the top region is of constant cross-section. The lower, higher and upper regions are shaped so that in the lined mould, or box a cavity is formed which decreases in cross-section from the top of the mould or box to a minimum cross-section,the cavity gradually widening in cross-section below this point. The tile may be made in two portions to assist transportation, the tile being assembled in situ. In this case one of the tile portions has a profiled face forming three regions equivalent to the lower, higher and upper regions of a monolithic tile.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.