Experimental and numerical modelling of the flow field in a CuxSny direct chill caster

Abstract

To investigate the influence of the casting speed on the flow field and the shape of the solidification front in an industrial bronze caster, numerical calculations have been performed and experimental flow field measurements were used to validate the numerical model. Both numerical and experimental model represented 1:1 the real caster geometry of 820 × 250 × 800 mm3. A steady-state calculation, considering solidification and turbulent flow, was performed. Furthermore, a 1:1 water model of the industrial bronze caster has been built and combined with a Particle Image Velocity (PIV) setup to measure the apparent flow fields. Amongst other parameters, the numerical model provided information on the influence of the casting speed on the solidification front shape. The water model gave the experimentalist the facility to adjust the shape of the solidification front to the one predicted by the numerical model and compare the resulting flow field with the numerical prediction. This work presents a comparison of the results of both numerical and experimental models for different casting speeds with the same numerical parameters and boundary conditions.