5th International Conference on Advances in Solidification Processes (ICASP-5) 5th International Symposium on Cutting Edge of Computer Simulation of Solidification, Casting and Refining (CSSCR-5)

As it is known from literature, the metals tend to follow a viscoplastic law at high temperatures. Thereby, based on the authors’ previous developments to simulate the behavior of the equiaxed crystals packed bed, a viscoplastic stress model is applied to the thin slab casting process. The model is reduced to the single phase mixture formulation for faster and robust simulations. In this idea, the solidifying shell represents a ‘creeping solid’ and the Norton-Hoff type stress model is formulated with the model parameters obtained experimentally. A coupling procedure is established to converge the non-linear terms. The influence of the stress model parameters is investigated. Next the model is applied for the simulation of the thin slab casting to improve a previously developed technique: a viscoplastic rheology is applied to calculate the motion of the solidifying melt instead of imposing the velocities of the mush. The simulation results show that the most deformations happen at the funnel part of the mold, causing highest strain rates and the significant drop of the viscoplastic ‘apparent viscosity’ according to the Norton-Hoff law. The solid shell velocities are mostly uniform at the straight parts of the strand but a slight acceleration of the shell is observed along the funnel surface. Strong compression / expansion zones are detected at the funnel part, which could lead to defects formation. The solid shell thickness was successfully predicted as well and compared to the previous work by the authors.