Heat Transfer of Steel in a Slab Tundish with Vacuum Chamber

Abstract

For the purpose of reducing the heat loss of steel through the walls of tundish during continuous casting production, a new-type tundish performed by welding radiation-proof steels on its exterior walls was proposed to investigate the effect of the pressure inside a vacuum chamber on the temperature field of steel. Numerical results show that, outlet temperature of vacuum tundish at 50 Pa is 4 K higher than that of traditional tundish, and the region of high temperature section is up to 85% of the whole region when the heat flux through walls is less than 1645 W/m². But the region of high temperature section is only 45% in the traditional tundish. And the maximum temperature difference on the surface is 9 K lower than that inside the traditional tundish. Tests show that, the temperature of inner point at 10² Pa is 3 K higher than that at 10⁵ Pa. Meanwhile, the local temperature difference of outlet at 10² Pa is 5 K higher than that at 10⁵ Pa. Vacuum tundish can allow low superheat teeming of steel due to thermal preservation of vacuum so as to decrease the temperature of tapping and improve the uniformity of temperature field of steel. Therefore, this new technology may contribute to applications for continuous casting productions of advanced steel grades.