EDGE DAM SYNCHRONIZATION AND TENSIONING CONTROL METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR THE SHAPING AND PROFILING OF CONTINUOUSLY CAST METAL SECTIONS BY MEANS OF A CONTINUOUS CASTING MACHINE

• Main Authors: ALLYN, JEROME B, CARMICHAEL, ROBERT J, KALASKIE, FRANK E, KAISER, TIMOTHY D, DYKES, CHARLES D, BARRY WOOD, JOHN F, SIMON, CHARLES R
• Format: Patent
• Language: English; French
• Published: 28.06.1994
• Edition: 5
• Subjects: CASTING; CASTING OF METALS; CASTING OF OTHER SUBSTANCES BY THE SAME PROCESSES OR DEVICES; PERFORMING OPERATIONS; POWDER METALLURGY; TRANSPORTING

EDGE DAM SYNCHRONIZATION AND TENSIONING CONTROL METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR THE SHAPING AND PROFILING OF CONTINUOUSLY CAST METAL SECTIONS BY MEANS OF A CONTINUOUS CASTING MACHINE A method and system are provided for synchronizing the traveling edge dams in the continuous casting of metal slab, strip, or bar, thereby providing a means for the continuous uniform casting of longitudinally spaced edge shapes, contours, or profiles such as integral shoulders, lugs, lobes, depressions, curves, or indentations in the opposite edges of the cast product. Shapes include the protruding lugs, cast directly opposite each other, for suspending copper anodes in electrolytic refining--also the intruding, material-saving contours in the tops of anodes. A belt-type continuous casting machine is shown wherein two moving contoured edge dam loops each comprise blocks strung upon flexible endless metal straps. The moving edge dams on each side of the mold must be synchronized, regardless of disturbing thermal variations notably. "Back breakers" exert upward rolling contact force controllably and separately against each moving edge dam loop along its return path, thereby changing the local curvature and so adjusting the degree of mutual compression and closeness of the constituent dam blocks or the end-to-end spacing of the same. Such compression effectively shortens the elevated edge dam loop and thereby hastens its revolutions. Known previous methods of heating or cooling to synchronize the edge dam loops may advantageously be used in addition to back-breaker control. The positioning of separate "back-breaker" apparatus in an inverted configuration near the entrance to the moving mold results in a significant improvement in the sealing capability of the entering edge dams against the lower casting belt where molten metal is introduced.