Sliding-gate closure construction for bottom-pour vessels

Claim 1

In a slidable gate closure construction for controlling discharge of liquid metal from a ladle or a tundish having an outlet in its bottom wall, which construction includes a refractory top plate having an orifice aligned with said outlet, a refractory gate abutting the underside of said top plate and slidable with respect thereto to open and close said orifice, and means engaging said gate along its side edges for supporting both said top plate and said gate on the underside of a vessel, the improvement in which the upper face of said gate is convex as viewed in a cross section taken in a plane transversely of the direction of gate travel, and appears straight as viewed in a longitudinal section taken in a plane parallel with the direction of gate travel, and said top plate has a mating concave lower face, whereby forces applied to the gate along its side edges are effectively transmitted to the mid portion of the gate where the gate abuts the top plate.