As illustrated on Fig. 1, the DC-ca

As illustrated on Fig. 1, the DC-cast material is reheated and then subjected to a series of hot deforma- tions, including numerous rolling passes in a reversing breakdown mill followed by multi-stand hot rolling. After the breakdown rolling, the microstructure typi- cally comprises slightly elongated recrystallized grains with a size of the order of 200 µm (Fig. 3b). Because of the high deformations and temperatures involved in the breakdown rolling, the primary phases break up and develop a more spherical shape (Fig. 4b).