Surface turbulence in a physical model of a steel thin slab continuous caster

In the thin slab continuous casting (TSCC) of steel, the issue of optimum fluid flow is very important due to higher casting speeds and has direct influence on the formation of solidified shells and the quality of final products. In the current work, a full-scale physical modeling of a thin slab caster on the basis of dimensionless Reynolds and Froude similarity criteria was constructed. The flow pattern in the funnel shaped mold with a new tetra-furcated submerged entry nozzle (SEN) was investigated. To determinate optimum operational parameters, some experiments were carried out under various casting conditions. The results show that the tetra-furcated design of the nozzle leads to a special flow pattern in the mold cavity with three-dimensional recirculating flow. It is also shown that the increase of casting speed and gas injection results in surface turbulence. On the other hand, using a higher depth of SEN decreases the vortex in the free surface of the caster. To avoid surface turbulent and related casting problems, it is recommended to use 30-cm and 40-cm SEN depth at the casting speeds of 3.5 and 4.5 m/min, respectively.