High Fidelity Numerical Investigations of Tailored Magnetic Fields for Defect Reduction in Continuous Casting of Steel

这项拨款为研究提高连铸钢质量的策略提供了资金，方法是应用定制的磁场来改变模具区域的流体流动，以减少缺陷的形成。磁场对钢流施加额外的力，从而改变影响夹杂物输送的速度和产生当前工艺中大多数缺陷的水平波动。为了实现这一目标，高保真的计算机模型将基于对湍流及其与磁场相互作用的精确建模而开发。基于图形处理单元的先进并行计算机将用于减少计算时间和提高网格分辨率。所开发的计算机模型将应用于研究模型和工业几何中的流场，以表征不同磁场结构的影响。最终目标是获得性能和实际可行性的最理想配置。如果成功，该项目将减少钢材连铸过程中的缺陷，减少能源、材料和资源的浪费。在美国和全球，超过90%的钢材都是用连铸工艺生产的。主要研究人员通过伊利诺伊大学连铸协会与几家钢铁生产商密切互动，该协会提供了行业视角以及将结果付诸实践的方法。该研究有望有助于从根本上理解受不同磁场结构影响的复杂区域的湍流。使用图形处理单元进行流体流动模拟最近在速度和准确性方面取得了显著的优势，这项工作也将扩展到多个图形处理单元的集群。

This grant provides funding for the investigation of strategies to improve the quality of continuous-cast steel by applying tailored magnetic fields to alter fluid flow in the mold region to reduce the formation of defects. Magnetic fields apply additional forces to the steel flow which change the velocities that affect the transport of inclusions and level fluctuations that produce most of the defects in the current process. To accomplish this, high-fidelity computer models will be developed based on accurate modeling of the turbulence and its interactions with the magnetic fields. Advanced parallel computers based on graphics processing units will be used to reduce the computational times and increase the mesh resolution. The computer models developed will be applied to study flow fields in model and industrial geometries to characterize the effects of different magnetic field configurations. The ultimate objective is to obtain the most desirable configuration for performance and practical viability.If successful, the project will reduce defects and reduce the waste of energy, material and resources during the continuous-casting of steel, a process which is used to produce over 90 percent of the steel in the United States and globally. The principal investigators have close interactions with several steel producers through the Continuous Casting Consortium at the University of Illinois which provides an industry perspective as well as the means to implement results into practice. The research is expected to contribute to the fundamental understanding of turbulent flows in complex domains subjected to varied magnetic field configurations. The use of graphics processing units for fluid flow simulations has recently enabled significant advantages in speed and accuracy and this work will also be extended to clusters of multiple graphics processing units.