On August 3^rd, 2017, China Iron & Steel Industry Association (CISA) and the Chinese Society for Metals (CSM) released the list of winners of 2017 National Award of Science and Technology in Metallurgy, and “Research & Development and Application of Envelop Line-based On-line Mold Width Adjustment Technology Package for Continuous Slab Casters” presented by the R&D team led by CISDI was awarded the 3^rd prize.

For production of cast slabs of various sizes, the widths of the mold of a continuous caster have to be adjusted according to the widths of the slabs to be cast. The on-line mold width adjustment technology results in considerable savings in materials and time by making change of molds and secondary start of casting unnecessary. It features higher equipment efficiency, higher metal yield, lower process consumption and lower operational cost, thus attracting great attention in the industry. In the past the technology was monopolized by the world-known companies like Voest-Alpine Industrieanlage (VAI), Nippon Steel (NSC), Danieli, imposing constraints on development of China’s homegrown continuous casting processes and control technologies and the competitiveness of Chinese engineering companies in the global continuous casting market.

CISDI started to do research on on-line mold adjustment for casters in 2010 and a technology package centering on the envelop line-based on-line mold width adjustment process model was successfully developed soon. In 2011, it was applied to #1 slab caster of Xinjiang Bayi Iron & Steel, China for the first time, marking the very beginning of its commercialization. So far, it has also had good applications in the projects of Baosteel Zhanjiang, Shagang (China), Sarralle (Spain). The research & development achievements include 4 patents (2 for invention), 2 published papers. The technology package itself has been assessed as one of the advanced worldwide, and the envelop line model-based technological control for slab caster molds is taking the lead globally.