EUROPEAN STEEL TECHNOLOGY AND APPLICATION DAYS 2017 - ESTAD 2017

The meaning of numerical simulations of metallurgical reactors has increased during the last years. The simulations offer detailed information about the process and new insights into regions, which are typical difficult to examine. For the simulated remelting processes the growth direction of the dendrites is most important. The correlation between liquidus isothermal and growth direction allows the comparison to metallurgical samples produced in the real process. The validation of numerical simulations concerning measurable target values is indispensable for the expressiveness of the model. For the comparison of the dendrite growth direction it is necessary to investigate the microstructure of the whole ingot diameter. An in-house development, the “macroscopic texture examination”, allows to scan huge metallurgical samples including the evaluation up to secondary dendrite arm spacings. The technic is based on a high resolution reflex camera with a macro lens mounted on a traversing unit. The single photographs are stitched to a picture of the whole sample. On the basis of the determined dendrite growth directions a pool profile can be reconstructed and compared to the numeric model.