The steelmaking process is divided into the primary production and the

secondary production. The primary production of steel begins with the raw material,
that can be iron-ore or steel scraps and goes until the production of ingots or
continuously cast long products (blooms, billets or slabs), that are the semifinished
casting products and so the starting point of the secondary production, that provides the
final products after the shape refinement and possibly heat treatment to obtain desired
properties.

After the steel achieves the desired composition, in the Ladle Furnace, the ladle,
which is movable, proceeds to the following step of the primary steelmaking
production, that is the production of ingots or continuously cast long products.

The first possibility of obtaining semifinished products is the ingot casting, that
is characterized by a movable ladle containing the molten steel that pours it into the
molds (mounted on a stool) by means of gravity, once that the ladle remains over the
molds. The ladle is carried by an overhead crane and has an opening that allows the
pouring to be realized. There are two possibilities of filling the molds: top-pouring and
bottom-pouring. In the top-pouring, the mold is directly filled from the upper part of the
molds, one by one, by opening the ladle and closing it when the mold is fully filled, so
that the ladle can proceed to the following mold, each one mounted on its own stool. In
the bottom-pouring, several molds can be filled at the same time, by pouring the steel
into the top of a common fountain that is interconnected with the bottom part of the
molds by means of channels that are inside a single stool that supports the molds,
allowing their simultaneous filling. The bottom-pouring, besides being more productive,
has another advantage, that is the lower incorporation of air, because less turbulence is
being introduced.
 The second possibility of obtaining semifinished products is the continuous
casting. In this method, once again by means of gravity, the ladle pours the molten steel
into a tank, called tandish, whose level of steel must be kept constant in order to
maintain its bottom outlet speed constant, so it acts like a reservoir. After leaving the
tandish, the steel passes inside an open mold that is water-cooled in order to reduce the
temperature of the molten steel and create a solidifying skin outside it, so that the long
product can be properly curved in the following step of the continuous casting, that is
passing between rolling cylinders, in order to horizontally align the blooms, billets or
slabs, allowing them to be cut and stored after the complete cooling.

Among the advantages of continuous casting, with respect to ingot casting, we

have the reduced costs for large production, the improved quality (lower chemical
composition variability and better surface quality), the increased yield, the lower energy
costs and the lower pollution.

With regards to the resultant cast product microstructure, there are three
distinguishable zones that characterizes the very large products that are obtained: a chill
zone (an external skin of fine equiaxed grains), a zone with large columnar grains and a
center-equiaxed fine grain zone. This non-homogeneous microstructure introduces some
defects that are characteristic of the primary cast products, that are: the presence of large
grains; the non-equiaxed structure; the inhomogeneity of the chemical composition; and
the gas porosities and shrinkage porosities. Those defects affect the mechanical
properties of the products in such a way that the obtained mechanical strength and
toughness are so reduced that they cannot be directly put in service in the form of
ingots, blooms, slabs and billets, requiring further modification in the microstructure
before the secondary steelmaking processes, which is achieved by the hot bulk
deformation processes.