Simulation of continuous cast steel product solidification

Abstract

Primary cooling – inside the tundish – has a great impact over the thickness of the solidified steel crust. If on exiting the tundish the crust is too thin, it can punch and break, as a result of the ferrostatic pressure exerted from the inside by the liquid steel as well as because of the weight of the molten steel. The parameters that influence the amount of dissipated heat depend on the cooling water flow of the tundish, on the pressure and temperature of the cooling water but also on the overheating of the continuously cast steel. The secondary cooling takes place at the exit of the semi-finished product from the tundish, when the solidification is supposed to take place all along the cross section of the strand. In order to achieve it, in addition to a correctly managed primary cooling, it is necessary to obtain the proper correlation of the factors that influence the secondary cooling as well: the water flow rate long the three zones of the installation and its pressure in the secondary circuit. All these have in view a proper solidification length; an intense cooling can generate cracks due to the thermal stress, while a too slow cooling can generate a partial solidification of the strand up to the cropping machine area. The paper presents a mathematical simulation of the continuously cast steel solidification.