Intermixing model of continuous casting during a grade transition

To investigate the composition distribution that develops in continuously cast steel during a grade change, an efficient, accurate, and user-friendly computational model has been developed. The model is fully transient and consists of three submodels, which account for mixing in the tundish, mixing in the liquid core of the strand, and solidification. The first submodel of mixing in the tundish consists of two plug flow zones, two back-mixing boxes, and two dead volumes. The second submodel solves a one-dimensional (1-D) diffusion equation in series with two back-mixing boxes to calculate concentration histories in the strand, and the third submodel transforms these histories into slab compositions. The model was calibrated using both concentration histories measured on tundish water models and calculations from a three-dimensional (3-D) model. It was then verified with several sets of composition measurements along the surface and centerlines of slabs. The model is capable of tracking mixing phenomena for arbitrary tundish filling and casting speed histories. It has been used to compare the effects of different grade change procedures on the amount of intermixed steel, including standard sequence casting, flying tundish change, and insertion of grade separators. Mixing in the strand was found to be very important. Without a grade separator, a flying tundish change had very little benefit on reduced intermixing, for the typical conditions considered.