Continuous Casting Shoe Layout for Flash-Free Battery Grids
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing continuous casting machines for lead-acid battery grids face challenges in consistently producing high-quality grids at high speeds over long periods, including flashing, incomplete filling of mold grooves, and cold welded seams, which affect structural quality and current carrying capacity.
Innovation Solution
A shoe and machine design for continuous casting with a longitudinally elongate orifice slot and separate molten lead supply and return passages, inclined to manage molten lead flow and prevent upflow, combined with a return passage system that includes a return tube with spaced outlet passages to enhance excess lead return and casting integrity.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Manufacturing precision
If excess molten lead is supplied at super atmospheric pressure to the orifice slot to fill the drum mold grooves, then the mold grooves are filled with molten lead, but lead flashes between the grooves and flashes on the wires of the battery grids
Solution Approach 1:
The invention divides the single orifice slot into multiple orifice slots arranged in a circle, with each slot feeding a specific sector of the rotating drum mold. This segmentation allows controlled molten lead flow into specific groove sections, preventing excessive pressure buildup and lead flashing while ensuring complete groove filling in each sector.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention creates different flow conditions in different regions by using multiple localized orifice slots instead of a single high-pressure source. Each orifice slot is positioned to feed molten lead into a specific groove sector, providing localized controlled filling that prevents the harmful flashing effect while maintaining complete groove filling.
2Productivity
If the casting machine operates at high speed for increased productivity, then production rate improves, but cold welded seams and knitted joints occur in the cast grid
Solution Approach 1:
The invention ensures continuous molten lead supply to the orifice slots through the rotating shoe mechanism, maintaining uninterrupted casting flow even at high speeds. The multiple orifice slots are positioned to continuously feed molten lead into the rotating drum mold, preventing cold welding and knitted joints by ensuring the lead remains molten throughout the casting process.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention uses a rotating shoe with multiple orifice slots that dynamically positions the lead supply points relative to the rotating drum mold. This dynamic system maintains optimal filling conditions at various rotational speeds, preventing joint defects by adapting the lead delivery timing and position to match the drum rotation speed.
3Use of energy by stationary object
If molten lead temperature is reduced to lower operating costs, then energy consumption decreases, but incomplete filling of drum mold grooves occurs
Solution Approach 1:
The invention segments the molten lead supply into multiple smaller streams from separate orifice slots, each feeding a specific groove sector. This segmentation allows the lead to be delivered in smaller, more controlled portions that can be completely filled even at lower temperatures, as each localized stream maintains better thermal energy concentration compared to a single large-volume flow.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention uses multiple orifice slots to deliver molten lead in slightly excessive amounts to each groove sector, ensuring complete filling even at reduced temperatures. The distributed delivery system provides sufficient lead volume to each localized area without requiring high overall temperatures, as the shorter flow paths and smaller volumes maintain thermal energy more effectively.
4Productivity
If continuous casting operates for extended periods without dross removal, then productivity increases, but dross accumulation affects casting quality
Solution Approach 1:
The invention incorporates a dross removal mechanism that periodically extracts accumulated dross from the molten lead supply system during continuous operation. This allows the casting process to run for extended periods by systematically removing harmful dross deposits, maintaining casting quality while preserving high productivity through minimal interruption to the continuous casting process.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This design improves the casting integrity of battery grids by reducing cold welding, maintaining molten lead flow, and allowing for higher production rates with improved grain structure and structural strength, enabling longer continuous casting without dross removal and at lower temperatures.
Implementation Method 1
the supply passage may be inclined downwardly generally toward the direction of rotation of the drum past the orifice slot(s)
Implementation Method 2
the return passage(s) may be inclined generally downwardly away from the direction of rotation of the drum past the orifice slot(s)
Implementation Method 3
a homogeneously fused joint of the lug with the adjacent wire portions of the cast grid
Data Source
AI summary
A shoe for dispensing a molten metal such as lead into a mold cavity of a rotating drum to continuously cast a web of a plurality of serially connected grids or battery composite electrodes of a carbon fiber material with a cast metal conductor. The shoe may have at least one elongate orifice slot in a face confronting the drum, a molten metal supply passage communicating with the orifice slot and an excess molten metal return slot opening into the confronting face downstream of the supply slot relative generally to the direction of rotation of the drum.