Influence of the Submerged Entry Nozzle’s Bottom Well on the Characteristics of Its Exit Jets

Jesus Gonzalez-Trejo,Florencio Sanchez-Silva,Francisco Cervantes-De-La-Torre,Ignacio Carvajal-Mariscal,Cesar A Real-Ramirez,Ruslan Gabbasov,Jose Raul Miranda-Tello

doi:10.3390/met11030398

Jesus Gonzalez-Trejo, Florencio Sanchez-Silva + Show 5 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/met11030398

Copy DOI

Abstract

In vertical continuous casting machines the liquid steel from the tundish is poured into the mold through the Submerged Entry Nozzle (SEN). The shape and direction of the SEN exit jets affect the liquid steel dynamics inside the mold. This work quantifies the effect of the SEN pool on the principal characteristics of the jets emerging from it, precisely, the shape, the spread angles, and the mold impact point. Experimental and numerical simulations were carried out using a SEN simplified model, a square-shaped bore nozzle with square-shaped outlet ports whose length is minimal. These experiments showed two well-defined behaviors. When a single vortex dominates the hydrodynamics inside the simplified SEN, the exit jets spread out and are misaligned about the mold’s central plane. On the contrary, when the inner flow pattern shows two vortexes, the exit jets are compact and parallel to the mold wide walls. The measured difference on the jet’s falling angles is 5°, approximately, which implies that in an actual casting machine, the impingement point at the narrow mold wall would have a variation of 0.150 m. This hydrodynamic analysis would help design new SENs for continuous casting machines that improve steel quality.

Highlights

Many authors have studied the hydrodynamic behavior of the continuous casting process for standard slabs for several decades
The analysis presented in this work is accomplished through numerical and physical simulations using scaled models whose geometric dimensions were defined according to similarity criteria that guarantee coincidence between the liquid steel dynamics in current
Nozzle Internal Prototype (NIP); (b) Time averaged port-perpendicular velocity components along both ports for type A NIP; Velocity magnitude contours for type B NIP; (d) Time averaged port-perpendicular velocity com(c) Velocity magnitude contours for type B NIP; (d) Time averaged port-perpendicular velocity ponents along both ports for type B NIP

Summary

Introduction

Many authors have studied the hydrodynamic behavior of the continuous casting process for standard slabs for several decades. Solidification, in turn, is influenced by the shapes of the jets exiting the Submerged Entry Nozzle (SEN). Some of these authors have recently proposed methodologies to improve the visualization of phenomena and measure important physical variables of the process [1]. To understand the internal hydrodynamic behavior of the flow exiting the nozzle into the mold numerous experiments used air bubbles injected into the water stream of scaled models [4]. The air bubbles trajectories and their distribution were compared with argon bubbles inside the continuous casting slab mold and show consistent results between experiments and numerical simulations [5]

Methods

Results

Conclusion