Numerical solution of moving boundary problem related to continuous casting

Abstract

Metal present in the ore is itself not sufficient for engineering purposes. It should be further refined and some foreign elements are to be added to obtain steel, copper and aluminium metal with different strength, hardness, reliability etc. for different engineering purposes. Competition in metalmaking industry requires the continuously preoccupation with the relevant process and product data for product quality or process productivity assurance and improvement. Recently, energy savings has become the most important theme in the steel manufacturing industry for reasons of environmental protection, economic utilization of resources, reducing capital equipment and reducing transformation cost. To help metalmakers meet ever increasing demands to produce high quality crack-sensitive grades of metal at higher and higher speeds, with enhanced properties and better surface characteristics and slab casting is the process which will help in fulfilling these demands to an extent. In the reported literature, there is a scarcity in the application of numerical analysis on continuous casting due to the involvement of step change in boundary conditions and also due to infinite domain of the medium. In the present study a numerical model, employing the finite difference method, is proposed to solve the conduction equations. The numerical solution of the continuous casting slab problem encounters two major difficulties. The finite difference solution of conduction equation, numerical solution is beneficial in solving conduction equations attributed to temperature dependent thermo physical properties. Finally code was written in FORTRAN-90, and after carring out the simulations the results were analysed.