查看文章

Inert gas shrouding is a common practice in tundish metallurgy and has manifold benefits. However, there are a few detrimental aspects associated with it, and one of them is the formation of an exposed ‘eye’around the ladle shroud which results in higher heat losses, and more importantly re-oxidation of the liquid steel and inclusion formation. Hence, it is essential to gain proper insights about the formation, and evolution of slag ‘eye’s in tundishes so as to improve the operations, and enhance liquid metal quality. In the present work, the behavior of slag ‘eye’in tundishes have been simulated using the finite volume based program ANSYS-FLUENT 15. The mathematical modeling was performed using the Volume of Fluid (VOF) method, and discrete phase method, coupled with the standard k–ε turbulence model. The predictions from mathematical modeling were validated against one-third scale water model experiments. Although the present numerical results over-predicted the experimental results by~ 17%, they are well within reasonable limits considering the complexity, and stochastic nature of the problem.