9th ECCC European Continuous Casting Conference – ECCC 2017

Variation across different length scales of phase evolution during solidification of steel define the final properties of the cast slab. Various multi-phase models by Ludwig et al [1] and Beckerman [2] for modelling of columnar / equiaxed solidification microstructures in alloys exist in literature. In today’s world of high quality steel, understanding the dependence of the solute compositional / thermal profile ahead of the solid-liquid interface on process parameters is of technical importance. Building a micro scale solidification model requires accurate incorporation of the physics of thermodynamics and hence the phase-field method is being used in this work. Authors have found a few publications on phase-field based microstructural evolution in Fe-C alloys containing high percentage of carbon but many cost-effective steels for automotive applications contain low / ultra-low percentage of carbon which is the subject of investigation in this work. OpenFOAM (Open Source Computational Fluid Dynamics Software) based phase-field code for solidification is not readily available and was used for the current work in order to encourage public use in a free and open environment. Starting with a pure metal, an open source micro scale phase-field based model incorporating the thermodynamics of solidification was developed for a low / ultra-low carbon Fe-C alloy. The coupled governing equations were solved using explicit Euler method. Initially the results were validated with what reported in literature for high carbon. Being an open source, to be developed generic code will have the potential for several other applications enabling a wider benefit of the scientific community. Keywords: Steel, Solidification, phase-field, OpenFOAM Reference: 1. M. Wu and A. Ludwig, “A Three-Phase Model for Mixed Columnar-Equiaxed Solidification,” Metall. Mater. Trans., vol. 37A, pp. 1613–1631, 2006. 2. C. Beckermann, “A Volume-Averaged Two-Phase Model for Transport Phenomena during Solidification,” Metall. Trans. B, vol. 22B, no. June, pp. 349–361, 1991.