Coupled thermal-mechanical simulation for continuous casting of lightweight alloys

9^th World Congress on Materials Science and Engineering

June 12-14, 2017 Rome, Italy

Amir M Horr, Johannes Kronsteiner, Stefan Scheiblhofer, Christian M�¼llshtt�¤ter and Stephan Ucsnik

Austrian Institute of Technology, Austria

Posters & Accepted Abstracts: J Material Sci Eng

Abstract :

The numerical simulations of industrial continuous and semi-continuous casting process for lightweight alloys have been used extensively to investigate the optimization of casting billets with high quality within relatively low operating cost and energy. The thermal evolution during the casting process and the industrial trend to control the rate of heat transfer coefficient (HTC) during both start-up and during-casting phases has been broadly studied. However, the estimation of HTC values during air, contact and water/oil cooling and the implementation of thermal and mechanical phenomena during casting process have relatively received little attention. The development of advanced numerical techniques (including multi-physical and evolving domain techniques) for thorough process simulation of the melt flow, heat transfer and evolution of stress/strain and damage during casting process has promoted many new opportunities. However, smarter and broader improvements are needed to capture the underlying physical and chemical phenomena including multi-physical transient fluid-thermal-mechanical coupling and heat-transfer changes during the process. For the starting-cast condition where most of mechanical cracking and damage are initiating, there have been many efforts to control mechanical defects by optimizing casting recipes. The concerns about cast billet quality and the minimization of hot tearing, cold cracking, and shrinkage dimensional control are part of casting quality control. Within this framework, the cooling system numerical simulation including its fluid flow and its characteristics (turbulence, free surface boundaries, etc.) heat transfer have to be modeled. In the research work herein, parallel experimental-numerical studies of coupled transient thermal-mechanical phenomena including HTC estimation using empirical and reverse analyses are presented. The phase change modeling during semi-continuous casting process including liquid and solid interface, and also implementation of dynamic HTC curves are also considered. One of the main contributions of this paper is to show the applicability and reliability of newly developed coupled thermal-mechanical numerical simulation approach for the optimization of continuous and semi-continuous casting process.

Biography :

Email: amir.horr@ait.ac.at