Fluid flow and mixing in a six strand billet caster tundish: A parametric study

Abstract

Mixing phenomena in a six strand billet caster tundish has been studied by numerically solving the Navier Stokes equations along with the species concentration equation in a boundary fitted coordinate system comprising the geometry of the tundish. The solution of the species concentration equation has been utilized to compute the mix, dead and plug volume of the tundish under different flow conditions. The numerical procedure and solution algorithm has been first verified by comparing the numerically obtained residence time distribution curve, which agree well with that of the experiments done for a single strand bare tundish by Singh and Koria.44) It has been observed that the ratio of the mix to dead volume for the six strand tundish has a maximum value for a particular position of the outlets. At that particular position of the outlets (where mixing is best), an APB is placed on the bottom of the tundish surrounding the incoming inlet jet and the height of the APB has been varied to see the effect on mixing in the tundish. It has been observed that the ratio of mix to dead volume further increases with the use of APB and attains a peak value after which it decreases with the increase of the height of the APB signifying the existence of an optimum APB height. At this optimum height of the APB, the shroud immersion depth was made to change from 0 to 400mm. It was also observed that there exists an optimum immersion depth of the shroud where the ratio of mix to dead volume still attains another peak signifying still better mixing. However, increasing the immersion depth to higher values spoils mixing significantly.