NUMERICAL ANALYSIS OF OPTIMUM SOFT REDUCTION AMOUNT FOR CONTINUOUS CASTING SLAB

Soft reduction has been proved to be the best way to minimize center segregation and eliminate center porosity. This article focuses on the investigation of optimum soft reduction parameters applied online, for the purpose to developing a reliable approach to determine proper soft reduction parameters basing variation steel grades and casting conditions. A thermal-mechanical coupled FEM model has been developed to predict proper soft reduction amount for continuous casting slab. For a given steel grade and section size, the soft reduction amounts, with different solid fraction in the center of slab cross-section, are suggested according to calculate results. It may lay the practical foundation for the soft reduction amount optimization of continuous casting process.