An ingot is a steel block, which is casted into a shape suitable for further processing having a cross-section which may be square, rectangular, polygonal, round, oval shaped according to the profile required. Ingots are manufactured by the freezing of a molten liquid metal in a cast iron ingot molds. Cast iron ingot molds play a vital role in the ingot manufacturing and Kesri Alloys takes several precautions in selecting ingot molds. A variety of designs exist for the cast iron ingot molds which may be selected to suit the physical properties of the liquid metal and the solidification process.

Firstly, the ingot mold is designed to completely solidify and form an appropriate grain structure required for later processing as the structure formed by the freezing of liquid metal controls the physical properties of the material. Secondly, the shape and size of the mold is designed to allow for ease of ingot handling and downstream processing. Finally the ingot mold is designed to minimize liquid metal wastage as it increases manufacturing costs of ingots and will finally affect the cost of finished products. The fluted design of ingot molds increases heat transfer owing to a larger contact area. Ingot molds may be either solid “massive” design or water-cooled shells depending upon heat transfer requirements. Ingot molds are tapered to prevent the formation of cracks due to uneven cooling. Crack or void formation occurs as the liquid to solid transition has an associated volume change for a constant mass of material.

Formation of these ingot defects may render the cast ingot useless and may need to be re-melted, recycled or discarded. In the early days of modern steel industry, ingot teeming was done by top pouring into tapered cast iron molds for all applications. For rolled plate applications rectangular cross section ingot molds were used. For rolled bar and some rolled strip applications the ingot molds were either square or round in shape but for forgings, the ingots were usually round or octagonal in cross section and particularly for the larger sizes of forgings, fluted ingots were used to reduce the risk of surface cracking during forging.

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