9th ECCC European Continuous Casting Conference – ECCC 2017

Against the background of the decisive role of heat transfer in the continuous casting mould for product quality a CFD model was developed, verified with industrial trials and applied for the adjustment of the cooling conditions in the mould. The numerical model included melt flow and solidification as well as a completely resolved cooling system, i.e. copper mould walls and cooling water flow. Coating of the copper plates, different layers of mould powder as well as a developing gap at the narrow face were considered with thermal resistances. In parallel temperature measurements were performed using a fibre optical system as well as thermocouples. This large database was used to verify the numerical model for different mould formats as well as different steel compositions. Main objective of the work was the homogenisation of the heat transfer in the mould, i.e. in the meniscus area and the mould corners, using the local heat flux distribution, the overall wall heat flux and the maximum copper temperature as evaluation criteria. Systematic numerical simulation studies with several geometry modifications of the cooling system were performed and the local heat transfer was significantly optimised. Adaptions of the mould geometry and its influence on copper temperature and surface quality were examined in industrial trials.