• To protect the steel stream from re-oxidation between the ladle and tundish
• To introduce the steel into the tundish with minimum risk of tundish powder entrapment

These roles are essential for most of the steel grades and steel applications.
Vesuvius teams combine their respective skills and experience in material selection and refractory design to offer a wide range of custom-tailored Ladle Shrouds and Gaskets that can answer each steel producer's needs.

Ladle Shrouds

Backed to Vesuvius’ high performance materials and engineered design solutions, Vesuvius Ladle Shroud solutions can:

• Ideally protect the steel from re-oxidation
• Allow submerged opening
• Operate without the need of pre-heat
• Achieve longer life with specific finite-element flange designs
• Maximize shroud re-use by oxygen cleaning

Main features

• Isostatically pressed materials
• Special materials with high thermal shock resistance to allow cold start and safe re-use after long tundish drains / long ladle exchanges
• Bell and Reverse Tapered designs to avoid blowbacks when submerge opening
• Optimized materials selected for the steel grades being cast and targeted casting times
• Various argon inerting strategies to minimize air ingress at the junction between Ladle Shroud and Collector Nozzle.

• Airtight Gaskets

  Vesuvius supplies airtight gaskets to improve the connection between the Ladle Shroud and Connector Nozzle. The roles of the gaskets are:

  • To minimize the risk of air ingression between refractory components, and the resulting risk of downgraded steel
  • To protect the refractory contact surface for longer life
   
  

  Main features:

  • SealbindTM gaskets – Standard or Expanding, create an effective air tight solution and compensate for surface irregularities that may occur during use. Expanding models improve the seal in use with increasing temperatures.
  • Reduce nitrogen pick-up
  • Improve steel cleanliness by preventing inclusion formation
   
  

  Metal Tight Gaskets

  This type of material has been specifically designed for areas where steel penetration is highly undesirable.

  These most critical areas are generally within the ladle sliding or rotary gate system, typically between the stationary plate and the lower nozzle or between the sliding plate and the collector nozzle.

  Main features:

  Benefits for using SealbindTM gasket for these applications:

  • Ultra-safe, highly resistant to steel penetration
  • Consistent & no waste by application of a pre-made gasket
  • Simple and easy to apply and remove
  • Available in various sizes and thickness to fit with application

  Gas Inerting

  Inert Gas Control for steel protection

  

  Primary objectives:

  • Management of inert gas applications to reduce the risk of air ingression through flow control systems, refractories and at refractory components junctions.

  Main features:

  • Multi-channel control panel, using mass flowmeters
  • Double line per loop with back pressure measurement (option)
  • 3 operating modes (option): Automatic Flow Control, Automatic Pressure Control, Manual