Transport phenomena in metal processing operations

这个先进的研究项目旨在发现在液态金属和合金的加工和铸造过程中，以及它们转化为钣金产品时，限制热量、质量和流体流动现象的基本问题。在钢液的加工过程中，精炼金属目前是从钢包转移到中间包中，以便在铸造之前重新分配到连铸机的模具中。建议更严格地调节钢内部进入和穿过中间包的氩气气泡的大小，以便利用它们浮出1-50微米范围内的有害夹杂物。这些尺寸在工业操作中是不可能去除的。为了尝试这种复杂的程序，学生们需要学习复杂的计算流体动力学，以便预测金属和堆积物的流动，并使用先进的监测设备（温度、物质浓度和夹杂物传感器），以便将这些结果与位于麦吉尔的全尺寸水模型中间包的等效实验结果进行比较，中间包装有最先进的控制系统。同样，当铸造钢和铝时，仍然普遍铸造厚板金属。在表面处理（去除水垢或表面加工）之后，板坯从150毫米厚轧制到一毫米，或更少！热轧机是资本密集型的，而且对环境不利。未来的金属板材生产是环保的，近净形铸造（NNSC）工艺（~2-10mm厚）。这需要将熔融金属浇铸到移动的冷却基板上，以形成一个“完美”的凝固表面，没有瑕疵。为了实现这一具有挑战性的目标，麦吉尔大学现在推出了一种独特的中试规模水平单带脚轮（HSBC），以及一种先进的、高度仪器化的模拟器。提出了创新的基础工作，准确地了解液态金属如何接触冷表面，热量如何通过不完美的峰谷界面传递（在微观尺度上），以及根据合金系统和反应来修改接触程度的方法。使用最先进的仪器，本研究旨在发现革新当前技术的方法。

This advanced research program aims at discovering the fundamental issues limiting heat, mass, and fluid flow phenomena, during the processing and casting of liquid metals and alloys, and their transformation into sheet metal products. In the processing of liquid steel, refined metal is currently transferred from a ladle into a tundish for re-distribution into the moulds of continuous casting machines, prior to casting. It is proposed to regulate the sizes of argon bubbles within the steel passing into, and through, a tundish more closely, so as to use them to float out deleterious inclusions in the size range 1-50 microns. These sizes are impossible to remove in industrial operations. To attempt such sophisticated procedures, students need to learn complex computational fluid dynamics in order to predict the flows of metal and overlaying slags, and to use advanced monitoring equipment (sensors for temperature, species concentration, and inclusions), in order to compare these with equivalent experimental results from a full scale, water model tundish, fitted with a state of the art control system, located at McGill. Similarly, when casting steel and aluminum, it is still common to cast thick slabs of metal. Following surface conditioning (scale removal or surface machining), slabs are rolled down from 150 mm thick to a millimeter, or less! Hot rolling mills are capital intensive, and environmentally unsound. The future for metal sheet production is environmentally-green, near-net shape casting (NNSC) procedures (~2-10mm thick). These require casting molten metal onto a moving cooling substrate, so as to form a "perfect" solidified surface, free of blemishes. To accomplish this challenging goal, a unique pilot scale Horizontal Single Belt Caster (HSBC) at McGill is now available, together with an advanced, highly instrumented, simulator. Innovative fundamental work is proposed, learning exactly how the liquid metal contacts a chill surface, how the heat is transferred through an imperfect interface of peaks and valleys (at the micro-scale), and means to modify the degree of contact, depending on the alloy systems and reactions. Using state of the art instrumentation, this research aims at discovering ways to revolutionize current technologies.