Patent ID: 7137437

Claim:
Method for producing slabs in a continuous casting installation ( 10 ) with an oscillating casting mold ( 11 ) and a downstream strand guide ( 20 , 22 , 23 ) below it, comprising the steps of: bending a cast strand ( 12 ) from a vertical casting direction into a horizontal rolling direction; supporting and conveying the cast strand during bending by driver rolls ( 21 , 24 ), which include straightening driver rollers and are arranged opposite each other in pairs, are adjusted relative to each other with well-defined contact force and can be combined into segments; deforming the cast strand ( 12 ), while it is still within the continuous casting installation ( 10 ) in an area of the straightening driver rolls ( 24 ), by at least one reducing stand ( 30 ) to a reduced strand ( 12 ′) with a reduced thickness relative to its cast state; subsequently cutting the reduced strand ( 12 ′) into slabs ( 12 ″); and conveying the slabs to a soaking furnace ( 40 ) and then to a rolling mill, the step of deforming the cast strand ( 12 ) to the reduced strand ( 12 ′) is carried out at an early point in time after its complete solidification at a surface temperature on the order of 1,000° C. in such a well-defined way with high energy input and low thickness reduction of, for example, a maximum of 7 mm at a cast strand thickness of 50 mm that the depth of oscillation marks ( 17 ) present in a surface ( 16 ) of the cast strand is reduced, and as a result of the introduction of the higher energy state into a deformed surface zone ( 18 ′) of the reduced strand ( 12 ′), whose effect extends as far as a region of aligned dendrites, an original finely crystalline structure of the surface zone ( 18 ) of the cast strand ( 12 ) is partially recrystallized in a small inner zone ( 19 ) in such a way that this zone ( 19 ) then expands into a completely recrystallized surface zone ( 19 ′) of the slab ( 12 ″) in a subsequent heat treatment in the soaking furnace ( 40 ).