Quality assurance in the production of continuously cast blooms and billets

Objective. Long product manufacturers Saarstahl AG, Volklingen, Georgsmarie nhutte GmbH, Georgsmarienhutte, and Edelstahl Witten-Krefeld GmbH, Witten, have scribed in a joint report the current status of the quality assurance measures which they implement in the continuous casting of billets and bloo ms. Summary. Quality assurance at the continuous casters embraces the four elem ents "Man", "Material", ''Machine" and "Method". A clear focal point where the "Method" element is concerned is the planning of the engineering, in pa rticular the monitoring of changing production conditions and of the influe nces exerted by the environment and the process itself. A "practically faul tless" primary product, made in quantities of many tonnes, cannot however m ean that small, mass-produced parts are also "absolutely defect-free"; in t his respect processing industry cannot do without its own additional inspec tion and testing measures.