Metal founding – Including vibrator means – In continuous casting mold
Reexamination Certificate
1999-11-29
2001-10-09
Dunn, Tom (Department: 1725)
Metal founding
Including vibrator means
In continuous casting mold
C164S478000, C164S443000, C164S459000, C164S485000, C164S418000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06298905
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The invention relates to continuous casting equipment, in particular continuous casting equipment with an integrated vibrating device.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
It is known how to vibrate the mould in the casting direction to prevent adherence of the billet to the cooled inner walls of the casting pipe in the continuous casting of metals, in particular in the continuous casting of steel.
A conventional vibrating device of continuous casting equipment comprises a lifting table, on which the continuous casting mould is arranged as a unit. These lifting tables are relatively heavy and in addition require quite a large amount of space under the mould, where this space is not always available.
The international patent application WO 95/03904 describes a mould which has a fixed casing, to which a casting pipe is connected via two flexibly deformable annular sealing diaphragms in such a way that it can vibrate in the casing along the casting axis. The annular sealing diaphragms seal an annular pressure chamber for a cooling liquid around the casting pipe. The casting pipe comprises at its top end lateral bearing journals, with which it is suspended in an oscillating lever. The latter is pivoted about a horizontal axis in the casing. A lever arm is led through a seal from the pressure chamber and connected to a lifting cylinder, which generates the vibrations. With this mould the weight of the parts to be vibrated and thus the power input are greatly reduced. A disadvantage of this mould is that changing of the casting pipe is relatively time-consuming, because the annular sealing diaphragms must first be dismantled.
International patent application WO 95/05910 describes a compact vibrating device, which has an annular lifting cylinder, into which a mould consisting of a casting pipe and a cooling box can be suspended axially. The cooling box of the mould is connected via flexible pipe connections to fixed connection pieces for the purpose of connection to a cooling water circuit.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present application is based on the task of producing continuous casting equipment with an integrated compact vibrating device, whereby it should be possible to connect the continuous casting mould to be vibrated particularly easily to a cooling circuit when changing it. This problem is solved by continuous casting equipment according to the present invention.
Continuous casting equipment according to the invention comprises a supporting structure, an oscillating lever, which is pivoted about a first swivelling axis in this supporting structure, a drive connected to the oscillating lever and a continuous casting mould, which can be supplied with a cooling medium. A bearing for supporting the mould is pivoted about a second axis in the oscillating lever. At least one connection for a cooling medium is integrated in the bearing. The mould is supported by the bearing and is detachably connected to the at least one connection for the cooling medium, so that it can easily be installed and dismantled as a unit, whereby the pivoted bearing remains mounted on the oscillating lever during dismantling of the mould and the cooling medium connection integrated in the bearing can consequently remain connected to an external cooling circuit. Consequently no flexible pipe connection need be broken and re-established between an external cooling circuit and the pivoted mould when changing the mould. It should also be noted that the oscillating lever with a vibrating bearing with an integrated connection for the cooling medium is an extremely compact vibrating device.
In a preferred embodiment of the continuous casting equipment, first connection means are integrated in the swivelling bearing and second connection means in the mould, these first and second connection means being complementary to each other in such a way that they interact when the mould is placed on the swivelling bearing to form a sealed transition for the cooling medium. The mould can accordingly be connected to an external cooling circuit without separately assembled pipes by simply mounting the mould on the swivelling bearing.
The bearing can be formed by a collector ring, which is pivoted in the oscillating lever. The mould is placed in this collector ring and sealed by top and bottom sealing means in relation to the collector ring, so that the collector ring and sealing means form an annular collector around the mould. In an advantageous embodiment these sealing means comprise a top and bottom sealing flange on the mould, the top sealing flange resting by means of a first seal on a top sealing face of the collector ring and the bottom sealing flange by means of a second seal on a bottom sealing face of the collector ring, the top sealing flange being larger than the bottom sealing flange. Consequently the mould can easily be placed from above in the collector ring. The mould advantageously has an annular sealing rib between the upper and lower sealing flanges, which rests with a seal on an inner surface of the collector ring in order to separate a feed chamber and a return chamber in the connection collector.
In an alternative embodiment the bearing comprises a first connection plate, in which at least one cooling medium connection forms a first opening, which is enclosed by a first sealing face. A second connection plate with at least one second opening for introduction or removal of a cooling medium is arranged on the mould. When the mould rests on the bearing in the operating position, the two openings are in alignment with each other, and a second sealing face, which encloses the second opening and is complementary to the first opening, is pressed against the first sealing face to form a seal. At least one of the two sealing faces opposite each other is advantageously formed by a ring which can be displaced axially against a spring element. In this embodiment satisfactory sealing is also ensured if more than one opening has to be sealed. For example, the first connection plate on the bearing and the second connection plate on the mould can each have at least one opening for a cooling medium feed and cooling medium return flow.
A mould for the continuous casting equipment described above advantageously has a projection, in which the second connection plate is integrated. A suitable bearing can then have two parallel supporting arms for the mould, the first connection plate connecting the two supporting arms in such a way that a forked bearing is formed for the mould.
The first and second sealing faces resting on each other are preferably essentially horizontal, so that the weight of the mould and the tensile force on the billet contribute to the generation of a contact force between the sealing faces.
The continuous casting mould advantageously rests with its top end on the swivelling bearing, guide means being arranged on the bottom end of the continuous casting mould to guide it in the supporting structure. These guide means may, for example, comprise a guide ring or a guide rod.
To achieve a particularly compact construction the second swivelling axis can be formed by swivel joints arranged between the first swivelling axis and the point of application of the drive on the oscillating lever. However, these swivel joints can also be arranged at one end of the oscillating lever.
Cooling medium connections integrated in the swivelling bearing can be connected by compensators to fixed connections of an external cooling circuit. A particularly long life of these compensators is achieved if they are installed in such a way that their central axis is essentially parallel with the stroke direction, which can be accomplished particularly easily in equipment according to the invention.
However, cooling medium connections integrated in the swivelling bearing can also be connected via ducts in the oscillating lever to an external cooling circuit. These ducts can each be connected to a fixed connection piece on the supporting structure via a first swivel joint connection arranged coaxially with the first sw
Assa Charles
Kaell Norbert
Lonardi Emile
Petry Rudy
Dunn Tom
McHenry Kevin
Paul Wurth S.A.
Smith , Gambrell & Russell, LLP
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