In CC practices, the gas shrouding and mechanical shrouding have been usually combined, that is injecting argon into a ladle shroud to improve the shrouding performance.Argon can be injected from the shroud neck as shown in Fig. 5(a), which has been widely used. An argon curtain is fixed around the head of the shroud in Fig. 5(b). A soft gasket is introduced to better the junction (Fig. 5(c)). In most cases, two or three of them have been adopted together to achieve optimized effects, as shown in Fig. 6. A small gasket is commonly used between the ladle shroud and the collector nozzle. The gasket is usually in annulus or frustum shape, made of either plaster or refractory materials added with ceramic fibers.
