Simulation of Microstructure of As-cast Steels in Continuous Casting

Abstract

Prediction and control of steel microstructure during and after the continuous casting process is an extremely important task for steel producers making special steels with high quality demands. Continuous casting is a very complex process with series of parallel phenomena with heat and mass transfer, solidification and phase transformations. As a long-term project the authors have proceeded by developing first a two-dimensional heat transfer model, then a three-dimensional and finally, a dynamic three-dimensional heat transfer model to simulate the continuous casting process. A special solidification model was developed as well, and coupled with the heat transfer model. Models were experimentally validated and numerous industrial cases were calculated and compared with measurements. The models seemed to predict quite accurately the phase transformations and micro-structural features like dendrite arm spacing and austenite grain size, phase fractions and hardness throughout the whole as-cast strand.