CONCAST – a liquid metal experimental facility for modeling the continuous casting process of steel

The pursuit of better product quality and higher productivity of the continuous casting of steel makes the flow control in tundish and mould and the initial solidification control in the mould to important issues. Numerous sophisticated numerical simulations concerned with the metal flow during the casting process need a fundamental experimental validation. The use of water models gives the advantage to save expense and to be able to apply a number of well-proofed measuring methods. However, a generalisation of these results to liquid metal flows has to be considered as questionable because the true values of flow parameters (Re, Pr, Gr, Ha, etc.) are difficult to meet. In many cases, for instance liquid metal flows with strong temperature gradients, two-phase flows or applications of electromagnetic fields, the flow phenomena cannot be modelled correctly by means of water experiments.
In this paper we present a new experimental facility CONCAST for modeling the continuous casting process by using the low melting point alloy BiSn. The facility operates at temperatures of 200°C-300°C. Main parameters of the facility and dimensions of the test sections will be shown. The resultant possibilities with respect to flow investigations in tundish, submerged entry nozzle and mould will be discussed. The main value of cold metal laboratory experiments consists in the capabilities to obtain quantitative flow measurements with a reasonable spatial and temporal resolution. New ultrasonic or electromagnetic techniques for measuring the velocity in liquid metal flows came up during the last decade allowing for a satisfying characterisation of flow quantities in the considered temperature range until 300°C.
First experimental results will be presented which have been obtained using a small-scale preliminary set-up with the room temperature alloy GaInSn. Measurements of the liquid flow in the mold will be compared with accompanying numerical calculations. The application of electromagnetic fields for flow and solidification control in steelmaking will be a crucial point of the future working program.