Improvements to Electromagnetic Stirring Systems for Billet and Bloom Continuous Casting Machines. Part 1

The consequences of a world economic crisis entail new problems for the management of metallurgical plants. These include a need to increase the productivity of continuous casting machines, an expansion of their grade and dimensional assortments, a reduction in the prime cost of production, energy consumption and ecological load on the environment, as well as an improvement in the quality of finished products. The quality of steel workpieces produced in continuous casting machines is considerably dependent on the equipment design features and applied casting technology. Even when using state-of-the- art continuous casting equipment, a group of identified defects in continuously cast workpieces — including shrinkage porosity, pipe segregation, and developed ingot dendritic structure — cannot be excluded. However, such defects can be prevented, or their development suppressed, by applying various methods involving external physical actions on the hardening melt, which assume an intensive interference in the process of ingot crystallization during casting. One of the most effective and technological methods of this action involves the application of a guided motion created in a liquid phase of a crystallizing ingot, in particular, by using electromagnetic stirring devices. The article presents the results of mathematical simulation studies of magnetohydrodynamic processes occurring during the electromagnetic stirring of a steel melt.