Columbus Stainless, South Africa, has placed an order with Voest-Alpine Industrieanlagenbau (VAI), Austria, for the upgrade of the existing VAI slab caster moulds with the new hydraulic automatic width adjustment system Hydrowam. Commissioning will be in October 2002. With Hydrowam, width adjustment is accomplished by means of four hydraulic drives per mould, which are directly linked to the narrow faces of the mould. This technical solution can be realised even with very limited space availability, as is often the case for revamp projects. The system also guarantees minimal mechanical backlashes and high guiding accuracy. Initial production trials of Hydrowam, which took place at SSAB Luleå, Sweden, in September 1999, were so successful that SSAB ordered the hydraulic width adjusting system for casters No. 4 and 5 and for all moulds. Since then, more than 45 Hydrowam systems have been sold world-wide.
