Improvement of tundish shape and optimization of flow control devices for sequence casting heavy steel ingots

The metallurgical effect of a round tundish used to cast heavy steel ingots in machine works at present was evaluated through water modeling experiments. The flow control devices of the improved oval tundish, which was used instead of the round tundish, had been optimized. The results show that the residence time of the round tundish is short, its inclusion removal efficiency is too low, and it has more dead zones and an unreasonable flow field. Compared with the round tundish, the improved oval tundish with the optimized weir and dam has a better effect: its minimum residence time is prolonged by 38.1 s, the average residence time is prolonged by 233.4 s, its dead volume fraction decreases from 26% to 15%, and the ratio of plug volume fraction to dead volume fraction increases from 0.54 to 1.27. The inclusion removal efficiency also increases by 17.5%.