Water Model Study Of Swirling Flow Tundish

In order to improve the flow pattern of liquid steel in tundish, to remove the inclusion from liquid steel in continuous casting tundish, quite a few flow control measures are widely used in steel plants inside and outside our country. These include the turbulence inhibiting pouring pad and centrifugal flow tundish.Based on the design ideas of the traditional turbulence inhibiting pouring pad and centrifugal flow tundish, a new flow control measure, i.e. the swirling flow tundish was developed. With a swirling chamber in the tundish, the function of turbulence inhibiting pouring pad can be completely realized, and at the same time, similar metallurgical effect with centrifugal flow tundish can also be attained. In addition, this method can avoid the electromagnetic equipment of centrifugal flow tundish.The author's group has already conducted some studies on a single strand swirling flow tundish, including the measurements of residence time distribution of fluid in tundish and rotation speed in swirling chamber. They have measured the response time, the residence time and rotation speed with different dimensions of the swirling chamber (diameter and height). They have found the best design of swirling chamber and the variation rule of rotation speed in the swirling chamber.In this work, focusing on the behaviour of inclusion, further experimental studies have been conducted on the single strand swirling flow tundish. The experiments include the measurement of flow field in swirling flow tundish using PIV, the flow field display in swirling flow tundish using the method of coloration, and the experiment of inclusion simulation in swirling flow tundish. Besides, the measurement of residence time distribution of fluid in a double strand swirling flow tundish has been conducted By processing and analyzing the experimental data, the following conclusions were attained.(1) The eddy center displacements on the horizontal section in columnar and conical swirling chambers are similar. Namely, at the same diameter, the eddy center moves clockwise (the direction of water flow) with height increasing.