Niobium in steel castings

Recent developments in large steel node castings are described briefly and the advantages offered by the use of cast nodes are illustrated. The development of high integrity castings has been made possible by steelmaking developments and developments in foundry technology. This paper describes the metallurgical aspects of the development of nodes, which necessitates deviations from the conventional manufacture of steel castings. The microstructural and mechanical properties attained are compared with those of plates used in fabricated structures. (AU)