2019 Pittsburgh AISTech

Effect of Bubble Behavior for a Stopper Rod With Multiple Side-Channel Injection on Bubble Size Distributions in Nozzle and Mold During Continuous Casting of Steel (Room 407)

06 May 19
2:00 PM - 2:30 PM

Tracks: Continuous Casting

Speaker(s): Brian Thomas, Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Colorado School of; Seong-Mook Cho, Colorado School of Mines

Argon gas injection is widely used to prevent nozzle clogging during continuous casting of steel. The argon also greatly affects fluid flow in the mold, depending on the bubble size distribution, which is difficult to measure in the steel caster. This work applies one-third scale water-air model experiments with high-speed video and analytical models to quantify bubble behavior and size distributions in a multi-channeled stopper-rod nozzle and mold during nominally steady-state slab casting. The results reveal the mechanisms of how the bubble size distribution changes due to formation, breakup, coalescence, and accumulation in this stopper rod and nozzle configuration.