MATHEMATICAL-MODELING OF FLUID-FLOW, HEAT-TRANSFER AND SOLIDIFICATIONPHENOMENA IN CONTINUOUS-CASTING OF STEEL

A steady state, two-dimensional mathematical model for continuous bill et casting operations has been developed. Towards this, governing equa tions of fluid flow and heat transfer together with their appropriate set of boundary conditions were derived and solved numerically via a c ontrol volume based implicit finite difference procedure (e.g., SIMPLE ). The effect of Various assumptions and procedures applied to modelli ng of turbulence phenomena, thermal buoyancy, flow through the mushy z one, free surface conditions etc., on the sensitivity of the computed results was investigated computationally. Of all these, modelling of h eat and fluid flow phenomena in the mushy region was found to have rel atively more effect on the predicted results. In addition to these, a set of three different billet casting operations reported in literatur e were simulated mathematically and direct comparisons were made betwe en predicted and observed solidified shell profiles. Such comparisons demonstrated reasonable to excellent agreement between theory and expe riments.