Characterization and Assessment of Mold Flux for Continuous Casting of Liquid Steel Using an Inverse Mold Simulator

This investigation discusses the experimental methods to characterize and evaluate the mold flux performance during continuous casting of liquid steel. The mold fluxes are initially characterized by the conventional techniques for particle size, phase identification, phase transformation during the heating process, viscosity, break temperature, and other high-temperature properties. Subsequently, the initial solidification behavior of the peritectic and interstitial free (IF) steel in the presence of respective molten mold flux has been simulated using an in-house designed and developed inverse mold simulator. This simulator takes into account the physical, thermal, and fluid properties of mold flux, liquid steel to be cast, and casting parameters (casting speed, mold oscillation frequency, and stroke length), to assess the performance of liquid steel casting in the continuous caster. A suitable mathematical model has also been developed to predict the transient heat flux and hot face surface temperature of mold at the meniscus level. The current study successfully concludes the importance of a mold simulator along with the conventional characterization techniques to completely evaluate the performance of any mold flux.