Process and apparatus for combined steel making and spray casting

Claim 1

A process of converting a stream of desilicized and desulfurized pig iron into a single steel strip of unlimited length comprising the steps of injecting into said pig iron stream a pulverulent oxide chosen from the group consisting of mill scale, iron oxide, the oxide of an alkaline metal which completely evaporates at the temperature of the molten pig iron, the oxide of a desired alloying metal and combinations thereof, providing a heat absorbing target having a cylindrical target surface with a vertical axis, providing a projector axially of said target surface for projecting a stream of molten particles against said target surface, providing a heat absorbing upper horizontal plane above said projecting means and a heat absorbing lower horizontal plane below said projecting means, said upper and lower planes cooperating with said target surface to form a chamber, maintaining a non-oxidizing atmosphere within said chamber, rapidly rotating and vertically oscillating said projector, causing said molten metal stream to flow vertically upon said projector, converting said molten stream by means of said projector into a stream of particles and projecting said stream of particles against said target to deposit on said target surface a layer of metallic particles substantially only one particle deep to insure that all the particles of said layer reach a crystallizing stage before the deposition of another layer thereon, similarly depositing subsequent layers until the strip product of required thicknesses is produced, providing said target surface with a diameter such that at least half of said particles are solid and plastic when they hit said target surface, rotating said target and said strip product formed thereon, and withdrawing said strip product therefrom as a single strip.