3. Geopolitics

Conceptually born in Europe at the end of the 19th century, strip casting lay dormant for almost a century until developments in process automation and materials made R&D work possible. All regions of North America, Europe and Japan have played an important role in the recent history of strip casting, as have newly industrialized countries such as South Korea, which entered the field more recently.

America was the first to publicly highlight the challenges of strip casting, and to identify stainless steel as the target for this technology of the future through the pioneering experience of Allegheny Ludlum, but it was Japan and Europe that devoted the greatest effort to this field, and achieved a remarkable technical level on several of their pilot plants. We are not presenting here all the attempts made on different scales during the 1980s and 1990s, which today...