Eventos Anais de eventos
COBEM 2023
27th International Congress of Mechanical Engineering
Water Model and Numerical Simulation of a Single Strand Slab Caster Tundish
Submission Author:
Pedro Domingos , MG
Co-Authors:
Pedro Domingos, Paulo Vinicius Trevizoli, Johne Jesus Mol Peixoto
Presenter: Pedro Domingos
doi://10.26678/ABCM.COBEM2023.COB2023-2117
Abstract
The steel production process through continuous casting is widely used worldwide, being responsible for a large part of the world production of this metal. The tundish is an extremely important vessel in this process, being responsible, among other factors, for promoting inclusion flotation and for supplying the mold with a constant flow of steel, guaranteeing the continuity of the casting process. Due to its importance in the process, the flow inside the distributor is widely studied by several authors and was the object of this study. Since the process is characterized by high temperatures (over 1500 ºC), water modeling is an important resource capable of providing information about the phenomena that occur inside the tundish and cannot be observed during operation. Due to the large size of the equipment involved in the process, scale models are generally used. Here, Froude's similarity criteria was considered for the similarity between model and prototype and analyzes the fluid dynamic phenomena that occur during the ladle change, a phenomenon characterized by transience. Injections of saline and dyed solutions were performed in the laboratory, and flow rate and electrical conductivity sensors were used to monitor the flow evolution. The data acquired through the water model are used to validate a numerical model, developed using the Ansys Fluent software. The results showed the mixing pattern that occurs in a single-strand slab caster tundish during a ladle change with a change in the chemical composition of the steel being casted. There is a window of time in which the mold is fed by a mix between different grades of steel, which can cause a downgraded ingot. The numerical model was able to represent the main fluid dynamic phenomena involved in the studied process, being able to be used for the optimization of variables.
Keywords
continuous casting, Water Model, Computational Fluid Dynamics, Multi-phase flow, Tundish
