Assessment of Surface Defects in the Continuously Cast Steel

The development of continuous casting to produce semi-finished products is now so far advanced that almost any grade of steel can be continuously cast, and in the most appropriate cross section for further shaping. High quality finished products can only be produced by using defect free slabs, blooms or billet. The removal of defects is either performed selectively by removing the specific defect. This paper, based on industrial research, refers to the possibility of defining and cataloguing the surface defects specific to the semi-finished products continuously cast, in order to discover the generating source and to take the proper measures to prevent and remedy them where appropriate. The industrial experiments were carried out over several months in a steel company, period when we searched the number and type of defects detected at the reception of the studied metallic material.