Introduction

The continuous casting of molten steel into billets, blooms and slab products, has been highly refined over the years into an extremely sophisticated system .The continuous casting process is expected to produce metallurgical sound products at the lower possible cost, and this is being achieved in many steelworks throughout the world.Copper moulds have played an important role in the development of the continuous casting process .Their function is to receive the molten steel and to allow rapid heat transfer from the steel to the cooling water to enable quick solidification. The mould must exhibit excellent thermal conductivity, be resistant for thermal erosion, and be resistant to distortion from thermal stress. So far only copper and a few copper alloys meet the above conditions, both economically and technically.