Ingotless Metal Rolling

the production of metal bars, stock, or strip by pouring liquid metal into a gap between horizontal rolling cylinders that are rotating in different directions. It was first achieved in 1855 when a steel sheet 1 mm thick and 1.2 m long was obtained by H. Bessemer’s method. The essence of ingotless metal rolling is the combination of casting, crystallization, and deformation of metal in a single process. The first experimental equipment in the USSR was developed in the Serp i molot metallurgical works in Moscow in 1938. The pouring of the steel, which had been smelted in an electric furnace, was done through a bottom-pour ladle into an intermediate ladle, and then through a casting device to mill rolls 900 mm in diameter with body lengths of 300 or 800 mm, from which a strip 1.5–6 mm thick was obtained.

Ingotless rolling has not become common for either ferrous or nonferrous metals owing to the unsatisfactory surface quality of the strip and a technology that is unacceptable for the industry. Continuous steel casting, which was first perfected in the Soviet Union, has proved to be more satisfactory.