STRIP CASTING TECHNOLOGY

… A KEY TO PRODUCT QUALITY

Presented at the International Melt Quality Workshop,

Madrid, Spain, 25-26 October 2001

By Pierre-Yves Menet, Frederic Basson, Klaus Maiwald, Robert Cayol, Marc Bosch
Pechiney Aluminum Engineering
Centr’Alp – BP24
38341 VOREPPE Cedex FRANCE

During twin roll casting brief history, emphasis was

Abstract placed on achieving the same strip surface quality and
geometry as those of a strip coming out of a hot mill,
Pechiney has been dedicated to developing twin roll be it after a belt- or block-caster or from a conventional
casting of aluminum technology and products for more hot mill.
than 40 years. Lately a new generation of machines, the That is achieved for alloys with low element content
Jumbo 3CM®, has emerged to complete the range of typically from 1xxx series (e.g. operation at Norandal
equipment available to produce hot rerolls on an “Quantum Leap” plant in Huntingdon, TN). For high
economical basis. The Jumbo 3CM® includes the latest element content alloys, casting parameters have to be
technological developments that Pechiney has designed adjusted in order to prevent formation of detrimental
in order to: segregations. Still robust windows of operation can be
- Reduce casting gauge; found for 3xxx and 5xxx series alloys (e.g. operation at
- Increase productivity and casting width; Hydro plant in Karmøy, Norway, which has a
- Increase quality of existing products and improve the longstanding experience in casting 3003 and 5052
consistency of the cast quality; alloys).
- Develop new products from continuous cast sheet.
The following sections summarize these developments A key difference between twin roll casting and DC
and shed light on Pechiney’s commitment to being a casting is the solidification rate of the metal: while in
leader in continuous casting technology for aluminum DC casting it is limited to 1 to 50°C/s, it reaches
flat rolled products. 1000°C on Jumbo 3CM®. This gives very fine
These developments have made possible the casting of structures (DAS ~ 5.0 µm) with smaller finely
alloys for more demanding products such as can stock, distributed intermetallics. Also the extent of elements
thin gauge foil, litho sheet and automotive sheet. in solid solution is increased, opening the way for
example to alloys with higher iron content. Final
Principle of process and history properties of products can benefit from that too.
Another advantage is the use of cheaper scrap. In any
Twin roll casting of aluminum is the only process that case, good metal treatment is required in order to
combines both solidification and rolling in a single obtain consistent quality and to address demanding
step. The liquid metal is fed through a nozzle (dubbed applications such as thin gauge foil. Thus a typical
“tip”) into the bite of a 2-hi mill where the rolls are casting line aiming at producing this kind of products
designed to fill both a heat exchanger and a rolling comprises a degassing unit and a filtration unit.
function. The rolls are made of two parts: a core and a
shell shrink-fitted on the core. Water circulates
Technological developments
between the core and the shell to cool the shell, which
is the part in contact with the metal. The metal exiting The development of strip casting technology by
the tip solidifies on the rolls into a strip that is further Pechiney has been carried out on 2 pilot lines in the
work-hardened by the rolls. To prevent the metal from past 10 years:
sticking to the rolls a release agent (most of the time a
suspension of water with graphite) is applied the rolls. - A Jumbo 3C® 620 pilot caster located in the
This release agent acts both as a lubricant and as a Pechiney Research Center in Voreppe, France;
thermal barrier that controls the heat exchange between - A Jumbo 3CM® 1150 industrial pilot line located in
the rolls and the metal. Liquid metal quality, metal the Pechiney Rhenalu Neuf-Brisach plant, France.
feeding and roll lubrication are key elements in the
control of the strip quality (see below).
While the pilot in Voreppe has a limited capacity (it is For thin strip casting, a new tip had to be developed.
fed by one 3-ton furnace and casting width is 400-mm), As the gauge is reduced, the space between the rolls for
the Jumbo 3CM pilot line in Neuf-Brisach is a full- a given setback is reduced. Either there is less space for
scale caster. It has been in operation for five years to the metal to flow through or the lips of the tip have to
serve different development programs. Lately, a small be smaller.
part of its time has also been allocated to production.
Teams of engineers, technicians and skilled operators To complete the device, the tundish together with the
are working on these installations on a daily basis tip can be precisely adjusted with respect to the rolls
benefiting both from the environment of the Research thanks to the new tip support table. This table allows
Center (in Voreppe) and that of one of the best for motion in every direction: back and forth to adjust
performing plants in the world for flat rolled products. the setback of tip on each side respectively. It can
move up and down to maintain a proper gap between
The technology itself has evolved to offer cheaper the tip lips and the rolls as a contact between the tip
though still more reliable equipment to customers. and the rolls can be very detrimental to the integrity of
As far as product quality is concerned, the keys are in the strip.
the control of the heat exchange between aluminum
and the rolls. The above features concerned the control of metal
Several issues have to be addressed: temperature and velocity along the metal feeding
- Metal feeding; device. The solidification is also determined by a third
- Roll cooling; important parameter: the metallostatic pressure of the
- Roll lubrication and coating control. metal at the outlet of the tip. See figure 2.

They will now be discussed in further details.

Metal feeding
The prerequisite to a good metal feeding is to have a
liquid metal with the proper gas and inclusion contents.
This is achieved by having the metal flow through a
degassing unit and filtration unit, preferably a deep bed
filter. The life and filtration efficiencies of such type of
filters are better than those of ceramic foam filters.
Metal feeding is critical in the sense that the velocity
field and temperature distribution at the outlet of the tip
that brings the metal in the roll bite affect the shape of Figure 2 - PAE Level control design
the solidification front. For example, a hot stream of
metal (by 10 to 15°C) in one area across the width will
lead to a deformation of the solidification front forward This parameter is called metal level or metal head. It
towards the exit of the rolls. At best, this translates into determines the intensity of the heat transfer at the onset
a gauge reduction in this particular area of the width. of solidification. Thus it is a critical parameter as it
At worst if the caster operator doesn’t correct the influences both solidification and strip geometry. The
defect, it can lead to a bleed-out. Till the mid-90’s it metal head control device, i.e. flow control device, is
was considered that a limit of productivity was the achieved by a horizontal actuator piloted by a PID
occurrence of bleed-out when reaching a certain speed controller fed by the head measurement from a
(ref. (1)). This limit still exists now but Pechiney has capacitance sensor located downstream. Performance
designed a metal feeding system to enables the observed at customers’ locations is better than ±0.3-
operator to have a better control of the metal flow in mm variation of the metal head.
the tundish prior to entering the tip (patented system
(2)). While a defect in the flow can lead to a bad Roll cooling (patented cooling system (3))
geometry, conversely, the operator can change the flow For thin gauge casting, the separating force on the rolls
within the tundish to alter the cross profile of the strip. is higher so as to obtain a satisfactory microstructure
This actuator on the cross profile of the strip could only on the as-cast material. To achieve that, the core+shell
be discovered with the installation of a tool to measure assembly had to be revised. An original 6-hole
continuously the profile of the strip, namely a traveling configuration is now proposed based upon numerical
X-ray gauge. With it the operator has an instantaneous modeling taking into account both the thermal and
answer of the process to his action. mechanical aspect of the case. The objective was to
minimize the roll thermal deformation due to non-
Beside the liquid metal flow pattern in the tundish, an uniform cooling and the out-of-round created by the
important part of the metal feeding system is the tip. mechanical deformation.
See figure 3. In summary, these developments have allowed the
casting of alloys both at thinner gauge and higher
productivity, as never achieved in the past. Some of
these developments are listed in the next part.
Product developments

Foilstock
A large part of our research programs is devoted to
determining thin casting conditions and downstream
processing schedules for alloys 1xxx and 8xxx for foil,
fin and other applications (ref. (4,5)).
Alloys 1235 and 1145, market references for the
Tetrapak application at 6.35 µm, were chosen to
determine the casting conditions and the processing
schedules for thin gauge 3CM metal for foil end uses.
Figure 3 - PAE Roll-Shell technology : Core Cooling Grooves
To produce strips that can be successfully rolled down
to a final gauge between 6 and 8 µm, the key
conditions are:
Roll lubrication and coating control
- Optimize the casting profile on the JUMBO 3CM®
The roll/metal interface plays a key role in the quality caster in order to ensure good strip flatness throughout
of the as-cast strip. The main parameters that govern the processing steps. The target transverse profile is a
the roll/metal interface are: crown of 0.4 to 1 % maximum and the longitudinal
- Composition and consistency of the oxide layer at the thickness variations must not exceed 1 to 1.5%.
roll/strip interface. - Get a sound metallurgical structure during
- Amount of release agent or lubricant deposited on the casting. The major issues are to eliminate both
shells. centerline and surface segregation, as well as to obtain
- How the lubricant is deposited on the shells. fine and uniform grain size distribution across the
Following the experience gained on the pilot caster at width.
Pechiney Research Center, a new spraying system was - Reduce the oxide level and surface roughness of
designed. The objective was to have more graphite on the as-cast strip. Under normal conditions, the oxide
the rolls and less in the atmosphere and especially on level on thin gauge as-cast strip is about 50% more
the strip and to have a more uniform deposit on the than for standard gauge strip casting and several times
shells. the oxide level obtained on DC material. Trials
performed with a new release agent and coating control
This tool has proven very useful to reduce and system have permitted to significantly reduce the oxide
ultimately eliminate the intensity of surface level.
segregations when casting thin strip. Figure 4. - Optimize the position of the heat treatment or
treatments within the processing schedule and their
conditions. A compromise is to be reached that gives
the metal a fine granular structure, good ductility, good
mat side surface aspect and low pinhole content.

Aluminum foils between 6 and 8 µm were produced at

the issue of the campaign of trials. The metal porosity
was examined by image analysis. The totality of the
pinholes greater than 2 µm can be counted using a
method of measurement developed by the Voreppe
Research Center. However, the size of the pinholes
remains extremely low, generally less than 20 µm.
Pinholes of this magnitude are disregarded in the
measurements covered by European standards
(Standard EN546-4).
The lower oxide level in relation to pinholes is under
investigation. With these conditions, we expect the
Figure 4 – Spraying system pinhole number to be below 300 per square meter.
Some of Pechiney customers, operating JUMBO metal produced by the classical DC process is such that
3CM® casters have already implemented in their daily the alloys generally used with traditional casting (such
production the results achieved at Neuf-Brisach. In as 3104 for can bodies) were not suitable. Thus the
particular, CBA (Brazil) is producing on a daily basis objective of the trials was to define the appropriate
foil from 3CM rerolls for several months, at gauges composition for each application combined with the
between 2.5 and 3.5 mm. appropriate casting conditions. Trials carried out at the
Research Center at Voreppe and on the pilot 3CM
For lighter gauges (typically 2mm) casting technology caster at Neuf-Brisach have enabled us to explore
has proved suitable and processing trials are ongoing to contents ranging between 0.9 and 2.2% for Manganese,
assess the effect of the reduced thickness on the between 1 and 3% for Magnesium, between 0 and
metallurgical quality of the final product. 0.5% for copper and 0 and 0.5% for Chrome.

Thin gauge as-cast coils in 8xxx series alloy for high Each composition was then tested during semi-
strength foils are under development. industrial trials:
Finstock made from 1xxx and 8xxx alloys are under - Casting on the JUMBO 3CM® pilot caster at Neuf-
investigation so as to defining the best compromise Brisach. The range of thickness explored was quite
between the mechanical performance and economical wide, between 2.5 and 4 mm.
processing route. - Industrial processing of the coils on the industrial
rolling lines for canstock at Neuf-Brisach.
Lithographic and high bright sheet - Fabrication of finished products on pilot lines at
Pechiney started the development of strip-cast 1xxx Pechiney Research Center and at canmakers’ facilities.
alloys for lithographic and high bright applications in
1997. The developed casting process and downstream These trials have lead to the definition of a triple
processing were implemented for lithographic combination of casting conditions / composition /
electrograined sheet early 1998 at Choil, South Korea. processing schedule, resulting in the successful
At this time, the casting gauge was between 3 and 6 fabrication of over hundreds of thousands of can bodies
mm. with no tear-off or galling. Validation on an industrial
The key points for these developments were: scale is on going (ref. (8)).
- A new metal feeding system.
- The roll-strip interface control in order to achieve a Automotive sheet
uniform as-cast surface quality. On the same lines as kitchenware applications (near net
shape applications from as-cast material), development
Due to the high solidification rate, a large amount of is ongoing for alloys and casting conditions for the
iron is trapped in solid solution and a high reflectivity production of structural parts. The compromise
(85%) of the strip at the final gauge is obtained. between tensile strength and elongation for as-cast
3CM 5xxx alloys allows us to envisage an ultra-simple
Near net shape applications processing schedule.
These developments started early 1997 and this As for kitchenware applications, the thickness range is
technology is already implemented in some of dictated by the final end uses i.e. between 2.5 and 3
Pechiney customers’ plants. mm. Preliminary results are promising and reveal high
potentials for 3CM thin gauge casting.
The range of casting thickness is dictated by the final The investigation of other properties (corrosion and
end uses and is situated between 2 and 4 mm. Casting joining) is currently in progress.
conditions are of course specific to each composition.
Outlook
An extremely interesting and surprising compromise Besides the improvements in continuous casting
between anisotropy, ductility and tensile strength technology and the development of new products,
(patent pending (6)) was reached with as-cast 3CM PECHINEY is continuing to promote the sale and
strips of Al/Fe/Mn/Si alloys, once casting conditions marketing of both conventional (3C) and thin gauge
were optimized. Mechanical properties are determined casters (3CM).
on a first degree by casting conditions and not by metal
composition. Ranges of properties that are not This activity has been particularly active and successful
accessible via DC processing route are opened up using over recent years and our customers can now benefit
the 3CM process. from all our improvements, in terms of technology and
new products.
Can body stock (covered by patent (7)) NORANDAL Huntingdon has confirmed its
For canstock applications, the difference in properties confidence in PECHINEY technology by ordering, last
and in metallurgical structure between 3CM metal and year, two new JUMBO 3CM® large width (2300 mm)
casters corresponding to the phase II of the “Quantum TMS 1998, Light Metal Editions - Pierre-Yves Menet,
Leap” project. These casters, under final testing in July Jean-Luc Hoffmann, Klaus Maiwald.
2001 are dedicated to fin stock production and
complete the two JUMBO 3CM® casters of phase I Authors
delivered in 2000. Pierre-Yves Menet is Project Manager of Continuous
Large width 3CM technology also convinced CBA in Casting Technology.
Brazil to whom two JUMBO 3CM® casters will be Marc Bosch is General Manager of Continuous Casting
shipped in July 2001. These casters, dedicated to thin 3C system.
gauge foil stock, will be added to the 6 PECHINEY Frederic Basson is Project Manager of Continuous
casters already in operation in this plant, making CBA Casting Technology & Product Development.
the largest continuous casting producer in South Klaus P. Maiwald is Manager of Continuous Casting
America. Technology and Products.
One JUMBO 3CM® caster was also installed last year Robert Cayol, Vice-President Technology Sales.
in PROFILGLASS, Italy, to produce 3000 and 5000
series alloys for aluminum tubes.

The number of PECHINEY JUMBO 3CM® casters

installed around the world stands now at 19 units and
the trend from the major aluminum producers to
consider the continuous casting route as the most
economical solution for new projects will see this
number increase significantly in the near future.

References
(1) “Optimization of 3C roll caster by automatic
control” Light Metals 1985, 1285-1299, S. Bercovici.

(2) "Process and device for controlling the thickness

profile of a thin metal strip obtained by continuous
casting between mobile molds" – PY. Menet, L.
Calaque. FR 2 775 916, WO 99/00527.

(3) "Process and device for correcting the out-of-round

of rolls for the continuous casting of metal strip" US
patent 5642772.

(4) “JUMBO 3CM® Thin Strip Casting : An alternative

for a wide range of products” – CIM, Canada 1999 –
METEC, Düsseldorf 1999. Robert Cayol, Frédéric
Basson, Klaus Maiwald, Pierre-Yves Menet.

(5) “JUMBO 3CM® Thin Strip Caster - Recent

Developments” –
Aluminium Association, Baltimore 1999 - 6th
Australian Asian Pacific Conference, Sydney 1999 – F.
Basson, M. Jamet, K. Maiwald, PY. Menet, JC. Terrier.

(6) "Method for making aluminum alloy strips by

continuous thin gauge twin-roll casting" International
patent application WO 98/52707.

(7) "Process for producing a thin sheet suitable for

making up constituent elements of cans" - US Patent
5616190.

(8) "Development of sheet for canstock and other

applications on Pechiney Neuf-Brisach JUMBO 3CM®
caster" –