Continuous casting of steel strip (50-year unsolved challenge)

Hazelett's attempt to extend their copper-on-steel-band process to steel strip. Failure mode: steel-on-steel has no thermal conductivity advantage; bands wear out. The "billion-dollar-if-you-solve-it" framing.

Every couple of days. They know approximately how long they last. It's actually a titanium-bearing steel. They've done a lot of work on these. I went up to the Hazelett plant once — that's probably why they invited me up. The Hazelett folks have been trying to make thin steel strip using their process. But you can't put steel on steel. Steel doesn't have the thermal conductivity of copper, so it stays hot longer and you wear out your bands. You can't run a little laboratory-scale version of these; you have to run one that's 3 feet wide. So it's expensive.