Continuous casting of Al-rods and wire

Sometime in the 1970s the Wire Association International held it's annual conference in Chicago and one of the attractions was a tour of the Western Electric Hawthorn Works continuous cast rod mill. Many WAI members went on that tour but I cannot recall if cameras were allowed. The WAI however should have promotional shots of the mill and since the Hawthorne Works and Western Electric no longer exist, I would assume that if you contact the WAI staff, you should be able to get some copies of their photos. I suggest you contact Editor-in-Chief - Mark A. Marselli via this web page www.wirenet.org/about/contact.htm

Sincerely,
Peter J. Stewart-Hay
Principal
Stewart-Hay Associates
www.Stewart-Hay.com

Hello there,

This is the way that I understand what went on:

Forty years ago, in the mid-1960s, there was company in Atlanta, GA called the Industrial Research and Development Corporation and a Mr. Tessmann developed a horizontal casting system called the Tessmann/ Olin System for Aluminum Bar and Rod. Thus the horizontal continuous casting system was apparently technically feasible.

In 1963 however Southwire and Western Electric had already entered into a joint venture to develop a continuously casting system for copper rod. (Many of us remember the large continuous casting machine at the Western Electric Hawthorne Works in Chicago.) The Aluminum Rod SCR process followed shortly after that development.

Properzi on the other hand had developed their aluminum rod casting system between 1950 and 1960 and had great increases in productivity between 1960 and 1970.

I imagine that this is a case where the major players (Properzi and Southwire) dominated the marketplace and thus the Tessmann/ Olin horizontal process was left in the dust. Unfortunately much of the historical information is in The Nonferrous Wire Handbook, Volume 1 titled "Nonferrous Wire Rod". It was was printed by the Wire Association International, Inc. in 1977 and is out of print and no longer available for sale. Please note that we have started to locate used copies of this book. Please see Forums thread: www.wirenet.org/forum/viewmessages.cfm?Forum=12&Topic=608

If your company has a copy in its technical library or if you know someone in your company who has a copy you might do a few hours reading and take some notes.

There are a number of engineering companies, including ours, that could go provide your company with a complete study as to which of the continuously cast machines would best suit your company today as well as answer all the technical questions about horizontally casting aluminum rod. This would compare not only the technologies and price but also the very important issues of service and spare part availability.

The main advantage of a horizontal continuous caster would be a reduction in the vertical space required.

Sincerely,
Peter J. Stewart-Hay
Principal
Stewart-Hay Associates
www.Stewart-Hay.com

continuous rod casters are great machines. Really it would depend on what you were going to do with it.
what product are you looking to make?

Hello Peter,

Thank you for your reply. I was out of the country, therefore the late reply.
Thank you also for offering us a study, however we are not in the need of this study. We have an inquiry to build a horizontal wire caster to produce a 17 mm Aluminum wire. We have experience in horizontal wire casters for stainless steel, nickel based alloys as well as cobalt based hard facing alloys.
Since I could not find any literature regarding continuous casting of Aluminum other than the Properzi Wheel and the Southwire system, i was looking for a reason, why the HCC process would not work.
I believe, it is possible to cast Al-wire in the size the consumer wants it without additional rolling. It depends what the customer wants to do with the wire.

Thanks again for your response.

Manfred Haissig
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Hi,

Thanks for your response.

A potential customer wants to cast a 17 mm wire. The intention is to use this wire in the steel industry to deoxidize the steel in the ladle.
Regards,
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Hello Manfred,

Deox rod is generally considered the lowest quality aluminum rod because of its extremely short life and its metallurgical raison d'etre.

A very slick way to do this is to chop up scrap aluminum into very small pieces (Like 100 mm or 4 inch pieces of 1350 aluminum wire from reclaimed ACSR (No steel or alloys.) and then use this as feedstock for a Conform machine which will extrude it (The pressure creates the heat.) as finished rod. (Talk about a cheap and dirty product!) I have actually seen this done as a regular process to produce deox rod for steel mills.

Conform machines can be found at www.bwe.co.uk/ There may be used machines available. Not much sense reinventing an existing process.

Sincerely,
Peter J. Stewart-Hay
Principal
Stewart-Hay Associates
www.Stewart-Hay.com