Comprehensive Evaluation Method for Cooling Effect on Process Thermal Dissipation Rate during Continuous Casting Mold

Abstract

Cooling in the continuous casting mold is the essential process of the molten steel solidifying into a slab shell. The synergistic relationship of casting state, process operation, continuous casting equipment, and other factors is complex and has a significant influence on thermal transfer in the mold. Therefore, a concept of "process thermal dissipation rate" defined by mold system thermal input and output was proposed in this work. The thermal input of molten steel was calculated through the casting temperature, and the slab residual thermal at the outlet of the mold was calculated by the solidification heat transfer model. Consequently, the thermal dissipation rate was calculated to quantify the multi-factor cooperative relationship of mold. The industrial case reflected that the thermal dissipation rates of three stable castings were 12.5%, 14.3%, and 18.8%, respectively, and all of them were obviously abnormal in unsteady casting such as start casting, changing tundish, and end casting. The results above indicated that the thermal dissipation rate could characterize the mold cooling target under the cooperation of complex factors and provide a new method for the dynamic evaluation of the mold system cooling effect with different casting states. Accordingly, the correlation analysis between superheat, casting speed, cooling water flow, and thermal dissipation rate revealed the synergistic influence law of multi-operation on mold cooling effect, which provided a new idea for the precise control of multi-process collaboration in continuous casting.