Abstract
In thin strip casting of steel, a major problem is the formation of cracks due to thermally induced stresses in the solidifying material. To compute these stresses and the susceptibility of the material to crack due to these stresses, a two-dimensional finite element based thermo-mechanical model has been developed. The temperature field obtained by the fluid flow and heat transfer model is imposed as a thermal load to the system. A visco-plastic constitutive relation has been used to describe the behavior of solidifying steel. A temperature dependent ultimate strength is used to define the cracking index, which indicates the susceptibility of the material to crack. Stress calculations are performed using a commercial software ANSYS.
