Southwire Company, LLC

Soutwire Company

E Henry Chia

Ronald D Adams

Frank M Powers

Kenneth E Chadwick

Roger J Schoerner

Robert H Ogletree

Uday K Sinha

John G Weber

Larry S Richardson

Apparatus for continuously extruding material includes a moving member and a stationary member forming a passageway therebetween for frictional feeding of the material to be extruded under pressure into the passageway. An abutment in the passageway forms a barrier to the material being fed therein, whereby the forces on the material heat it and cause it to yield. The heated material flows into an extrusion chamber adjacent to the abutment and is extruded from a die in a wall of the chamber. A cooling system provides first and second phases of quenching the extruded product separated by an interval of self-annealing to limit the surface grain size and the hardness of the extruded product. The product is subjected to the first phase of quenching immediately as it exists the die, to maintain the temperature of the extruded product at a desired fixed level at a selected point along the flow path of the extruded product downstream of the die.

Conform product thermomechanical treatment

A method of and apparatus for continuously casting a high impurity content molten metal in a casting means and the product formed thereby. The method includes the steps of cooling said metal while in said casting means to a temperature resulting in a sound cast bar, extracting the sound cast bar from said casting machine, advancing the sound cast bar to pre-heating means, heating the sound cast bar to a hot-forming temperature, passing the cast bar at a hot-forming temperature from the pre-heating means to a hot-forming means, and hot-forming the cast bar into a wrought product without the cat bar cracking, even when the cast bar has an impurity content of from about 20 to about 200 ppm.

Method of and apparatus for casting and hot-forming copper metal and the

A method is provided for removal of surface oxide from a continuously cast copper bar preparatory to inline hot rolling, wherein solidified bar continuously advancing from a continuous caster is directed to a continuous hot rolling mill, comprising: passing said advancing bar, being at hot rolling temperature, through a spray zone of selected quench capacity and impulse, such that for each segment of said bar passing through said spray zone, said oxide is quenched to a black heat but is not ablated and said underlying bar is subjected to a shallow quench; said spray zone being situated in close proximity to but selectively spaced upcourse from the first rolls of said hot rolling mill such that there is insufficient time for substantial reheating of said quenched oxide during the approach to said first rolls; whereupon as quenched segments of the advancing bar progressively approach said first rolls and said underlying bar begins to deform just prior to roll contact, said oxide spalls off the bar surfaces substantially. Thus, the protective copper oxide is not removed from the bar surface until immediately prior to roll contact thereby preventing reoxidation of the bar surface; and further, since the spray is necessarily nonablative in magnitude there is minimal effect on the temperature and hot forming characteristics of the underlying bar.

Exfoliation of surface oxide from continuously cast copper bar in

Disclosed are method of and apparatus for continuously casting a compound metal bar, the bar comprising a core member encased in a clad member which in combination form a unitary metal matrix. Said compound metal bar is cast by continuously pouring a first molten metal into a casting mold and discharging a second molten metal beneath the surface of the first molten metal beneath the surface of the first molten metal and continuously solidifying both molten metals to form said compound metal bar.

Method of and apparatus for casting a compound metal bar

A method of continuously casting a molten ferrous alloy in a casting means to obtain a solidifed cast bar at a hot-forming temperature, passing the cast bar at a hot-forming temperature from the casting means to a hot forming means, and hot forming the cast bar into a wrought product by a two-stage reduction of its cross-sectional area while it is still at a hot-forming temperature, including, in the first stage, the step of forming a substantially uniform fine grained, equiaxed or cell structure in the outer surface layers of the cast bar by a selected small amount of deformation of the cast bar in its as-cast condition prior to the second stage in which substantial reduction of its cross-sectional area forms the wrought product. The substantially uniform subgrain structure formed on the cast bar during the first stage of deformation produces a bar that has increased ductility compared to bar produced by the prior art processes and permits substantial reduction of the cross-sectional area of the cast bar during the second stage of deformation without the cast bar cracking, even when the cat bar has a relatively high precentage of alloying elements present.

Method of hot-forming metals prone to crack during rolling

A method of continuously casting a molten metal in a casting means to obtain a solidified cast bar at a hot-forming temperature, passing the cast metal at a hot-forming temperature from the casting means to a hot-forming means, and hot forming the cast bar into a wrought product by a two-stage reduction of its cross-sectional area while it is still at a hot-forming temperature, including, in the first stage, the step of forming a substantially uniform subgrain or cell structure in the outer surface layers of the cast bar by a selected small amount of deformation of the cast bar in its as-cast condition prior to the second stage in which substantial reduction of its cross-sectional area forms the wrought product. The substantially uniform subgrain structure formed on the cast bar during the first stage of deformation produces a bar that has increased ductility compared to bar produced by the prior art processes and permits substantial reduction of the cross-sectional area of the cast bar during the second stage of deformation without the cast bar cracking, even when the cast bar has a relatively high percentage of alloying elements present.

Disclosed is an apparatus for and a method for more uniform and rapid cooling of molten metal, which is continuously cast into a wheel-band machine, by dispersing a relatively small amount of coolant from the periphery of a band presser wheel onto the continuous metal band at the point where the molten metal first contacts said band, with the unexpected beneficial effects of increasing the cast bar temperature and greatly reducing the amount of inverse segregation on the band-side surface of the resulting cast bar.

Cooling apparatus for wheel-band continuous casting machines

Disclosed are apparatus for and a method of continuously trapping slag during molten copper transfer wherein a refractory slag trap comprising baffles traps slag particles by providing areas of non-uniform flow within the molten copper melt thereby causing all constituents having a specific gravity less than that of molten copper to rise to the surface of the molten copper and form agglomerates which can be easily separated from the copper by a pseudodeconting procedure or by other manual means.

Copper slag trap

A method of continuously casting a molten metal in a casting means to obtain a solidified cast bar at a hot-forming temperature, passing the cast metal at a hot-forming temperature from the casting means to a hot-forming means, and hot forming the cast bar into a wrought product by a two-stage reduction of its cross-sectional area while it is still at a hot-forming temperature, including, in the first stage, the step of forming a shell of finely distributed recrystallized grains in the surface layers of the cast bar by compressive forging affecting at least the surface layer of the cross section of the bar in its as-cast condition prior to the second stage in which substantial reduction of its cross-sectional area by rolling deformation forms the desired wrought product. The shell of fine grains formed on the cast bar during the first stage of compressive deformation permits substantial reduction of the cross-sectional area of the cast bar during the second stage of rolling deformation without the cast bar cracking, even when the cast bar has a high impurity content or is otherwise susceptible to intergranular rupturing.

Method of forge-conditioning non-ferrous metals prior to rolling

A method of continuously casting a molten metal in a casting means to obtain a solidified cast bar at a hot-forming temperature, passing the cast metal at a hot-forming temperature from the casting means to a hot-forming means, and hot forming the cast bar into a wrought product by a two-stage reduction of its cross-sectional area while it is still at a hot-forming temperature, including, in the first stage, the step of forming a shell of finely distributed recrystallized grains in the surface layers of the cast bar by a selected small amount of deformation of the cast bar in its as-cast condition prior to the second stage in which substantial reduction of its cross-sectional area forms the wrought product. The shell of fine grains formed on the cast bar during the first stage of deformation permits substantial reduction of the cross-sectional area of the cast bar during the second stage of deformation without the cast bar cracking, even when the cast bar has a high impurity content.

Disclosed is apparatus for and a method of continuously filtering and optionally degassing molten copper and otherwise extracting impurities therefrom comprising disposable porous ceramic foam filtering means and means for supplying a deoxidizing or cleaning gas advantageously disposed within a chamber containing a flowing stream of molten copper.

Continuous filter for molten copper

Improved aluminum alloy electrical conductors and method for making same are disclosed. The alloy contains from about 0.55 to about 0.65 weight percent nickel, the remainder aluminum with associated trace elements including no more than 0.15 weight percent iron, no more than 0.001 weight percent magnesium and no more than 0.05 weight percent copper.

Aluminum nickel base alloy electrical conductor and method therefor

An aluminum alloy electrical conductor having an electrical conductivity of at least fifty-seven percent (57%) based on the International Annealed Copper Standard and unexpected properties of increased bendability, creep resistance, fatigue resistance and thermal stability at a minimum standard elongation, when compared to conventional aluminum alloy conductors of the same tensile strength is described. The aluminum alloy conductors are produced by the addition of from about 0.10 weight percent to about 1.00 weight percent copper and up to about 0.10 weight percent iron to an alloy mass containing from about 98.70 weight percent to about 99.90 weight percent aluminum, and trace quantities of conventional impurities normally found within a commercial aluminum alloy.

Aluminum copper alloy electrical conductor and method

An improved method of continuously manufacturing a hot-formed, heat treatable aluminum base alloy product comprising casting a molten aluminum base alloy metal, cooling a cast metal during casting at a rate at which solidification shrinkage will not occur, hot-forming cast metal to form a rod at a temperature above the temperature level at which the alloy metals will precipitate to the grain boundaries of the aluminum base metal, heating the rod to a solutionizing temperature after hot forming and subsequently reducing the metal temperature from the solutionizing temperature of the metal to a temperature at which no substantial immediate precipitation occurs within a time interval before which any substantial precipitation occurs.

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Carrollton, GA, United States of America

E Henry Chia