Contactless inductive flow tomography at a liquid metal model of the steel casting process

The contactless inductive flow tomography (CIFT) allows the reconstruction of the full three- dimensional mean velocity field in electrically conducting melts from externally measured induced magnetic fields. One of its possible applications is the velocity reconstruction in the continuous casting process. We present CIFT measurements performed at the small-scale liquid metal facility Mini-LIMMCAST which uses the room-temperature liquid alloy GaInSn for modelling of the thin-slab casting process. It will be shown that the flow structure, in general, and the jet position and intensity, in particular, can be reliably determined from magnetic field data using only a modest number (in the order of 5) of sensors. Even the very asymmetric flow in case of artificially closing one of the two nozzle outlets is reproduced by CIFT. The CIFT measurements are partly validated by comparison with ultrasonic velocity measurements.