Remotely adjustable continuous casting mold

Abstract

A vertical slab mold has a pair of spaced wide walls, and a pair of spaced narrow walls which are located between the wide walls. The narrow walls are movable towards and away from one another for the purpose of performing width changes during casting. Drives for remote adjustment of the narrow walls during casting are connected with the narrow walls. A support for the narrow face of a slab is mounted immediately below each of the narrow walls and constitutes a downward extension of the respective narrow wall. The upper end of each support is articulated to the bottom of the associated narrow wall so that the support pivots relative to the narrow wall towards and away from the other support. A biasing element acts on the lower end of each support to urge the latter towards the other support and, hence against an adjacent narrow face of a slab. The biasing elements are designed to permit the supports to follow changes in the contours and/or positions of the narrow faces of the slab. This enables the supports to remain in engagement with the narrow faces of the slab even during periods of width change. Since bulging of the narrow faces during a width change is thus inhibited by the supports, it is unnecessary to reduce the casting speed when performing a width change.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.