All metal manufacturing includes a solidification process. The metal is either atomised to a powder, or it is cast. There is several casting methods used today. Many of the methods use the mould only once, for example sand mould casting, the lost-wax method and precision casting. For larger quantities of liquid metal, there are basically two methods: ingot casting and continuous casting. Ingot casting normally uses a permanent mould made by cast iron isolated by ceramic material. There are limitations with the ingot casting methods. The structure in the centre of the ingot will get coarse which decreases the strength of the metal and when casting larger quantities of metal the handling of the ingots gets very complex. To be able to increase
