THERMOMECHANICALANALYSIS IN SECONDARY COOLING ZONE OF CONTINUOUS CASTING

Abstract

Continuous casting is the process in which molten metal is solidified into a semi-finished billet, bloom, and slab. Continuous casting process is widely used all over the world in steelmaking industry. Continuous casting process is preferred over normal casting due to its advantages such as: lower initial capital cost, lower operating cost, high production yield, and better quality of the product. To enhance the quality of the product it is very important to understand the thermomechanical behaviour of the steel during the continuous casting process. For this the heat transfer and solidification process in the mold and secondary cooling zone is studied. Literature review of various research papers is done which are related to continuous casting defects, solidification modelling and thermo-mechanical modelling of continuous casting process. The thermo mechanical behaviour of a continuous casting slab has been simulated using a two dimensional mathematical model based on the consideration of fluid flow, heat transfer and solidification. initially grid independence study is done to get the correct mesh size. A well known CFD software (FLUENT) has been chosen for the solution of the governing equation to predict the temperature distribution in the slab. The different boundary condition has been applied in various zones. Optimization of the cooling rate is done for different process parameters such as casting speed, curve radius and superheat. The optimization strategy selects a set of cooling conditions and metallurgical criteria in order to achieve highest product quality. The changes in mechanical properties during were taken into consideration while optimizing the cooling rate. The model was validated against the experimental results for shell thickness in the mold reported by 1-lokaru et al.The model has been extended for the optimization of process parameters.