Stahlinstitut VDEh https://vdeh.de/en/information/news/ – 29.04.2026

At the invitation of the VDEh, the international continuous casting community met in Essen from October 7 - 11, 2024 for the 11th European Continuous Casting Conference. More than 350 participants came to the Philharmonie Essen for presentations and to discuss the latest developments in continuous casting, which began its journey to becoming the dominant casting process in the steel industry a good 50 years ago. Following the successful European Electric Steel-making Conference in June 2024, the VDEh is thus continuing the success story of its metallurgy conferences.

Apart from the Linz-Donawitz process, no other technology has given steel production in the 20^th century a comparable development boost as continuous casting. Continuous casting of steel began its triumphal march 50 years ago - so it made sense to organize the 11^th European Continuous Casting Conference as an anniversary event. The motto was well received: With over 350 participants from 27 countries, the response was extraordinary - and with the USA, Canada, Brazil, Japan, South Korea and China, visitors came from countries far beyond Europe.

The program committee with coordinator Dr. Michael Bernhard (Chair of Iron and Steel Metallurgy at Montanuniversität Leoben) was able to put together an extremely diverse program. The more than 100 presentations from 90 different companies covered such a wide range that they were divided into 30 thematic sessions. One topic stood out: the digitalization and automation of continuous casting offered visitors a particularly large selection. The sessions ranged from automatic process monitoring, monitoring and modeling, digital twins and quality prediction to “smart casting” and AI. With this diversity, the 11^th ECCC was able to present itself as an innovation platform, publicize new developments and promote the exchange between industry and science.

The VDEh was able to attract numerous sponsors and accompanying trade exhibitors for the conference: Ergolines, ABB, SKF, SMS, Weerulin, Primetals, Inteco, Lechler, Spraying Systems and Cunova supported the event as sponsors, whose exhibition stands were complemented by a further dozen exhibiting companies. This meant that the exhibition space at the Essen Philharmonie was fully booked and trade visitors had the opportunity to find out about numerous innovations in continuous casting in face-to-face discussions.

An atmospheric conference dinner, fully booked plant visits to the steelworks Krupp Mannesmann, ArcelorMittal Duisburg and thyssenkrupp Steel Europe and finally the large number of visitors made the 11^th ECCC a great success. And the VDEh Steel Institute was able to establish a new network and bring another important metallurgy conference to Germany as a steel location