Metallurgical quality of CSP thin slabs

The casting structure, chemical composition segregation, dendrite arm space, inclusiona and during the CSP (compact strip production) rolling process were investigated. The results show that the CSP thin slab has a feature of uniform fme grains, more columnar crystals, less central porosity and segregation etc. There is no great difference in macrostructure between the CSP thin slab and conventional slab; however, the fine dendrite structure of the CSP slab is more uniform. Moreover, the central porosity and segregation are obviously improved after the first pass; and the dendrite is bent along the rolling direction rather than broken into pieces.Small inclusions with the diameter less than 10 μm in the CSP slab are dominantly consisted of aluminates formed by Al deoxidation and Ca treatment and not floating out of the melt. The large size inclusions found in the continuous casting slab are very few.