Numerical Analysis of Turbulence Inhibitor Toward Inclusion Separation Efficiency in Tundish

Abstract

There is scientific agreement on tundish performance improvement on incorporating a turbulence inhibitor box or turbostop, but also a dearth of commentary on the principles of its design. Industrial practice often employs incredible detail and customization into these devices, in parts due to this lack of perspective. In the current work, numerical simulation has been carried out to examine the elements of turbostop design, in context of modifying flow to promote inclusion removal in the tundish. Isothermal turbulent single-phase steady-state analysis was carried out to study the residence time distribution in aqueous tundish systems and analyze the effect of turbostop design on it. Significant improvement in bulk flow characteristics was found with the use of tapered walls and such device shapes which adhere closely to local flow symmetry near the shroud. Additional elements such as ridged walls and partial cover were found to have small impact on overall flow characteristics. More generally, the efficiency of turbulence containment is predominantly a function of local flow redirection around the submerged jet, rather than specific to bulk tundish design, which shows nominal sensitivity to local flow behavior in the containment region.