A numerical modelling study has been undertaken to analyze transport phenomena in various steel casters. During the course of this work, a general three-dimensional parabolic heat flow model was developed for casters of arbitrarily shaped mould using a body-fitted coordinate transformation technique. The heat flow model was specifically applied to a beam blank caster as well as to an industrial slab caster of regular rectangular cross section, so as to analyze solidification within casters. / Furthermore, a fully coupled turbulent flow and solidification model was developed to describe the turbulent transport processes in the upper part of a steel slab caster as well as to evaluate the process variables affecting the casting. Solidification modelling was carried out using a fixed grid enthalpy method while the mushy zone was modelled based on a Darcy-porosity approach. A modified low-Reynolds number version of the $ kappa$-$ epsilon$ model of turbulence was employed to calculate eddy viscosity within the liquid and mushy regions. A control volume based on finite difference method was used to solve the transport equations, wherein a SIMPLER algorithm was adopted to resolve the velocity-pressure coupling in the momentum equations. In order to verify the turbulent flow model, a water modelling study was performed for fluid flow in the mould region of a slab caster. Reasonable agreement was obtained between the mathematical model's predictions, and water modelling experiments. / Macrosegregation of carbon in a steel billet caster was also modelled based on a continuum formulation, in which the conservation equations are derived in terms of mixture dependent variables. The effect of turbulence on the transport of solute in the liquid and mushy regions was taken into account using the $ kappa$-$ epsilon$ model adopted in this work. / Various parametric studies have been preformed on different casting systems, and their effects on temperature distributions and velocity fields within the strand, solidification profiles, and trajectories of inclusions were predicted. Typical predicted results of the models have been compared against the experimental measurements on operating casters reported in the literature and relatively good agreement was obtained.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.41514 |
| Date | January 1994 |
| Creators | Aboutalebi, M. Reza. |
| Contributors | Guthrie, R. I. L. (advisor), Hasan, M. (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Doctor of Philosophy (Department of Mining and Metallurgical Engineering.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001403772, proquestno: NN94570, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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