Abstract
A study of the effects of natural convection on solidification processes under the various casting conditions has been made by the use of KCl solutions as the solidification system.
Experimental results show that the increase in the teeming temperature causes the increase in the velocity of natural convection taking place along the solidification front and the increase of this velocity results in the acceleration of the removal rate of superheats in the liquid pool and also increase of the deviations of the liquidus and solidus planes from a vertical plane. Furthermore, it has been found that within the range below an eutectic concentration, as the concentration of KCl solution increases, the mean maximum velocity in the natural convection becomes faster and also the deviations of the liquidus and solidus planes from a vertical plane increase, but the mean maximum velocity is not so much affected by the change of temperature in the colling box.
Moreover, it has been observed in the solidification experiments of the distilled water that the bubbles rising along the solidification front accumulate on the solidification front near the point of boundary-layer separation which moves upward with the progress of solidification process.
