Innovative Low Melting Liquid Metal Model for Optimizing Argon Injection Practices during Steelmaking and Continuous Casting for Productivity and Quality Improvements

由于客户对质量提出了严格的要求，钢铁制造商在提高生产率的同时，也面临着保持连铸钢板高质量的持续压力。然而，提高生产率对板坯质量有不利影响，缺陷和次品对生产者的底线有重大影响。控制连铸过程中的流体流动是保证钢的清洁度和减少缺陷的关键参数之一。物理和数学建模是理解和优化连铸流体流动的重要工具。然而，理解气泡流和多相流并不是一件容易的事情，传统的水建模技术也有一定的局限性。水模型的使用是合理的，并允许应用一些完善的测量方法。然而，将这些结果推广到钢液流动时，必须仔细考虑，因为很难满足流动参数（Re, Pr, Gr， Ha等）的真实值。在许多情况下，例如，对于具有强温度梯度的液态金属流动，对于两相流动，当然还有电磁场的应用，流动现象不能通过水实验来正确地模拟。然而，在使用低熔点金属（如GaInSn合金、Rose Metal、Field Metal等）时，这些参数更接近真实的钢/Ar系统，因此气泡动力学和多相流模式预计比水模型更真实。本项目将涉及炼钢连铸中气泡流和多相流领域的基础知识，并将其应用于提高amd平板产品的产品质量。本研究项目将利用物理建模方法来优化连铸和钢包搅拌过程中的氩气注入。在连铸机方面，项目成果有望提高拉铁（D&I）和超低碳（ULC）钢等级的最大铸造速度。提高液体和固体钢质量所节省的费用预计每年将超过1000万美元。

Steelmakers are under constant pressure to increase productivity, and simultaneously maintain high quality of continuously cast steel slabs because of stringent quality demands imposed by their customers. However, increasing productivity has detrimental effects on slab quality, and defects and rejections have a major impact on the producers bottom-line. Controlling fluid flows in continuous casting is one of the key parameters to ensure cleaner steel and reduce defects. Physical and mathematical modeling is an essential tool to understand and optimize fluid flows in continuous casting. However, understanding bubbly and multiphase flows is not an easy task and traditional techniques like water modeling have certain limitations. The use of water models is reasonable and allows for applying a number of well-established measuring methods. However, a generalization of those results to liquid steel flows has to be considered carefully as the true values of flow parameters (Re, Pr, Gr, Ha, etc.) are difficult to meet. In many cases, e.g. for liquid metal flows with strong temperature gradients, for two-phase flows, and of course for applications of electromagnetic fields, the flow phenomena cannot be modeled correctly by means of water experiments. However, on using low melting point metals like (GaInSn alloys, Rose Metal, Field Metal etc.) these parameters are closer to the real steel/Ar system and hence the bubble dynamics and multiphase flow patterns are expected to be more realistic than water modeling. This project will deal with generating fundamental knowledge in the area of bubbly and multiphase flows in steelmaking continuous casting, and its application to improve product quality for AMDs flat products. This research program will utilize physical modeling approach to optimize argon injection during continuous casting and ladle stirring operations. At the caster, the project outcomes are expected to enable the increase of maximum casting speed of drawn & ironed (D&I) and ultra-low carbon (ULC) steel grades. The cost saving arising from improving both liquid and solid steel quality is expected to exceed $10 million/year.