TPT May 2013

Industry News

Concast founder honoured CONTINUOUS casting technology revolutionised the steel industry in the middle of the 20 th century, enabling a

With the previously used stationary process, casting took one or two days, as it had to pass through twelve different stations. Mr Rossi’s continuous casting process required only five stations and took just one hour to complete, with a material yield of over 90 per cent. Mr Rossi took his know-how to Europe and in 1954 founded Concast in Zurich, together with the later managing director Heinrich Tanner. As a pioneer in continuous casting technology in the western world – the Soviet Union had already developed continuous casters earlier – Concast was for a time the only supplier of plants of this kind. Mr Rossi died in 1990 at the age of 101. In this year, 455.17 million tons of steel were cast continuously, corresponding to 59.15 per cent of the world steel production.

higher productivity to be achieved. Irving Rossi, founder of the Swiss company Concast, launched the technology on the market. For his achievements, he has now been awarded a place in the Hall of Fame of the American trade journal American Metal Market . Mr Rossi was considered an astute businessman with a good instinct for technical innovations. 235 patents were registered in his name, some of which did not develop their potential until decades later. In 1949, Mr Rossi transferred the casting process from non-ferrous metals to steel for the first time. This required a great deal of courage and perseverance. For the first production plants in the USA, the entrepreneur guaranteed the steel quantity and quality, and the investments turned out to be profitable. The process enabled the American steel industry to achieve an immense boost in productivity.

SMS Concast AG – Switzerland Fax: +41 44 204 6921 Website: www.sms-concast.ch

Irving Rossi, founder of Concast AG, helped make continuous casting an industrial success

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M ay 2013