A New Insight into the Flow and Pressure Behavior of a Stopper Rod Flow Control System

Abstract

A previously unnoticed anomaly is recently identified in a stopper rod flow control system for the continuous casting of steel by comparing full‐scale water model experiments with plant data. Despite extensive research previously done on the continuous casting fluid flow phenomena, this anomaly and its background physics are not well understood by researchers. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling of the molten steel flow in the stopper rod system is performed with predictions matching closely with water model data but deviating from plant measurements. It is thus suggested by this comparison that certain aspects of the liquid steel flow and pressure behavior in the stopper rod system cannot be effectively described by traditional modeling techniques due to their embedded limitations. Through water modeling, CFD simulations, plant measurements, and theoretical analysis, the current study for the first time presents a thorough discussion of this observed anomaly, which brings new insights into understanding the complex fluid flow behavior and pressure distributions inside the stopper rod control system during the continuous casting process.