Investigation on Fluid Flow inside a Continuous Slab Casting Mold Using Particle Image Velocimetry

Abstract

Herein, full region (not divided the mold into several parts) fluid flow in a wide slab mold is studied using a one‐quarter scale water model. The particle image velocimetry (PIV) is used to analyze the turbulent features of the flows. The features include the distribution of instantaneous velocity fields, time‐averaged velocity fields, turbulent fluctuation velocity fields, the turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) and its dissipation rate, rate of strain, and the vorticity. There are several findings in this study. The fluid flow in the mold is not always symmetrical even the submerged entry nozzle (SEN) is strictly centered, but the time‐averaged flow structure is symmetric flow. The development of turbulence is relatively sufficient in the lower part of the mold, where the flow velocity is large, and the TKE and its dissipation rate are also large. Regions of positive and negative values signify the direction of the flow rotation with mirror images on both sides of the SEN. The regions of high vorticity are close to jets and decrease as it flows further into the mold.

Study on the Spatial Distribution of Argon Bubbles in a Steel Slab Continuous Casting Strand

“…During the continuous casting (CC) process of steel slabs, argon gas is commonly injected into the submerged entry nozzle (SEN) through the gas channel of the stopper rod, [1][2][3][4] small holes or porous refractory in upper tundish nozzle (UTN), [5][6][7][8] and the sliding gate of the SEN [9][10][11] to prevent the clogging of nonmetallic inclusions to the wall of the SEN. [12,13] Inevitably argon bubbles alter the flow pattern inside the mold. [14][15][16][17] Meanwhile, larger bubbles produce slug or annular flows inside the SEN and float up toward the top surface quickly which leads to flow instability, mold level fluctuation, and product quality problems.…”

Prediction Study on Vortex Center Position and Surface Velocity in a Steel Continuous Casting Slab Strand Using Mathematical Modeling

“…26,27) The characteristic parameters of the molten steel flow inside the mold included the jet angle, asymmetric flow, vortex center position in the recirculation zone, top surface profile, and top surface velocity distribution. Recent studies on the effect of casting parameters on the flow behavior of the molten steel inside the CC mold are summarized in Table 1, including investigations performed by physical simulation, [11][12][13]16,21,23,28) mathematical modeling, 15,29) and industrial trials. 4,30,31) During jets from the SEN moved to the narrow face, vortex was generated at different locations in the recirculation zone of the mold with the variation of different casting parameters.…”

Time-resolved PIV measurements of a deflected submerged jet interacting with liquid-gas and liquid-liquid interfaces

“…Thus, it has been common in the literature to use an analogous water-oil experimental setup where water and oil resemble the molten steel and slag layer, respectively. However, the majority of older publications neglected the oil layer and conducted pure water experiments (Yokoya et al, 2000;Zhang et al, 2007;Ren et al, 2019) or focused on the effect of gas injection (Ramos-Banderas et al, 2005;Liu et al, 2014). Vakhrushev et al (2014), Zhao et al (2017), and Zhao and Zhou (2019) report experiments for LES validation with a water and oil configuration but focus on the analysis of the interface deformation and open eye formation without further measurements of the flow field.…”