An Assessment of Physical and Mathematical Modelling approaches in the study of Flow and Solidification Phenomena in Continuous Casting of Steel

Modelling of continuous casting process and various approximations and idealisations applied therein have been reviewed and analysed computationally. To this end, a conjugate, turbulent fluid flow-heat transfer model, embodied in ANSYS Fluent (TM) V18.0, has been formulated, via the "enthalpy-porosity method" and validated subsequently, against previously reported experimental data from an industrial scale billet caster. Numerical predictions have indicated that while computational mold length, extent of SEN submergence, and near wall treatments (i.e., wall functions) of model equations do not have significant bearing on results, the mushy zone constant as well as turbulence model, on the other hand exert considerable influence on flow, thermal and solidification profiles within the descending strand. Furthermore, isothermal water modelling was shown to capture the details of molten steel flow in mold region reasonably accurately. Numerical analysis supported by experimental measurements confirm that heat transfer and solidification phenomena play key roles and the simplistic effective thermal conductivity-based models are generally inadequate to model complex thermo-fluid phenomena in continuous casting.