Preface

Excerpt

Steels, the most widely used metals in the world, play fundamental and crucial roles in various industries as well as our daily life. It is well known that the performance of materials is correlated with designed composition and achieved structures that are controlled by process procedures and parameters, and thus the employment of proper procedures and parameters is essential for the properties and quality of final steel products. Solidification is a key step in the steel manufacturing route. Once the solidified steel billets or ingots contain detrimental defects, such as macrosegregation, it is difficult to eliminate them by the subsequent rolling and heat treatment procedures. Therefore, proper control of solidification processes produces high-performance steel products. Moreover, it has been recognized that the application of advanced casting technologies, such as continuous casting and thin slab/strip casting, can significantly increase the production efficiency as well as energy saving. Hence, developing new and advanced casting and solidification technologies provides a potentially feasible approach in steel green manufacturing. …