SUPPLEMENTARY TOOLS TO MEASURE AND UNDERSTAND THE FLOW IN THE CONTINUOUS CASTING MOULD

Abstract

For the production of clean steel it is important to control the flow in the mould. A lot of modelling work
has already been done to study the flow behaviour in the mould. Measurements in the continuous casting
mould are necessary to validate the modelling work, especially when multiphase flow is studied or when
electromagnetic flow control systems are incorporated. For a few years, two measuring principles have been
used to study the flow behaviour at the meniscus in the mould at Corus IJmuiden No.2 BOS. The main
method is a simple flow measuring device, which consists of a refractory tube sealed at the bottom and fixed
at a pivoting point at the top. The tube is submerged in the liquid steel in the mould. Measuring the resulting
inclination angle reveals the flow direction and gives a measure of the velocity. In this way the effect of casting
parameters on flow behaviour can be studied, such as the effect of the submersion depth of the SEN, the Arflow
on the shrouding system (between the tundish and mould) and the change from double roll to single roll
flow in the mould. Also, measurements are done with the ‘nail board’ method giving a snapshot of the flow
direction at multiple locations in the meniscus. An electromagnetic sensor was used to measure the multiphase
flow condition in the SEN. In this paper results of these measurements are shown and examples are compared
with CFD calculations. A better understanding of the effect of casting parameters on the flow pattern in the
mould was obtained using these supplementary tools.