special - ALUMINIUM-Nachrichten – ALU-WEB.DE

SPECIAL
ALUMINIUM SMELTING INDUSTRY
washed, and damaged balls must be replaced.
Gautschi’s systems offers maintenance cycles
of more than 12 months between the regenerator
cleaning. In addition, our system uses
honeycomb modules, of which only a small
proportion (generally only the top layer) must
be replaced during the maintenance, so keeping
cost to an absolute minimum.
In order to meet customers’ requirements,
we offer reverberatory melting and holding
furnaces, round top charged melting furnaces,
tower melting furnaces, and oval shaped holding
furnaces in its portfolio. However, due to
its huge technical data base, Gautschi is also
in a position to meet any special requirements
customers might have for a specific application.
Gautschi can be seen as the leading supplier
of round top charged melting furnace technology,
having supplied many such furnaces in the
course of its history. It is not uncommon for
such a furnace to remain in operation for 50+
years. Capital well invested!
This type of furnace is normally used in
larger remelt facilities (e.g. rolling mills) to
optimise the production capacities. A typical
installation might have a 120-tonne casting
line consisting of one RTC melting furnace,
one holding furnace and one VDC casting
machine for rolling slabs and produce more
than 140,000 tonnes a year. Output depends
not only on the melting furnace but also on
the material used to charge the furnace, and
on the size or format changes of the rolling
slabs.
Besides having expertise both for the liquid
metal furnaces and for its auxiliary equipment,
the company also supplies complete casting
lines, from the melting furnace up to the casting
machine. Complete lines have the advantage
that all battery limits / communication
interfaces are designed and supplied by one
company.
Casting systems
Gautschi’s casting machines are known for
their accurate and robust design as well as
for their high level of automation. The Gautschi
family of casting machines produce high
quality products such as rolling slabs, extrusion
billets, forging stock and foundry ingots
around the globe.
Vertical DC casting machines have been on
our agenda for more than six decades. These
machines have been constantly developed
over the years, and they feature Gautschi’s
Airglide mould technology for billets. Just
recently a newly developed billet mould gas
control system for a vertical DC casting machine
has been successfully commissioned at
one of our long-term partners.
This mould system offers a superb pit recovery,
with billets showing excellent surface
qualities while having minimised shell and
segregations zones. Compared to similar systems
available, the Gautschi Airglide mould
technology requires very low maintenance.
This mould system is mainly used for billet
diameters between 5 to 10”. However,
moulds as small as 2” and as large as 16” have
been supplied to different customers. All commonly
used alloys can be processed.
Gautschi has been one of the pioneers in
the design of horizontal DC machines to cast
billets and ingots, a technology which is still
commonly referred to as the Gautschi-Ugine
casting process. High versatility combined
GLAMA Maschinenbau GmbH
Hornstraße 19 D- 45964 Gladbeck / Germany
phone + 49 (0) 2043 9738 0 fax + 49 (0) 2043 9738 50 email: info@glama.de
web: www.glama.de