Division of Casting of Metals, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden

Electromagnetic stirring and the continuous casting of steel

Electromagnetic stirring (EMS) has been used in the industrial continuous casting of steel since the 1980s as a method for improving the quality of the surface, sub-surface and inner structure of the cast product.One of the principal ideas is that stirring promotes the formation of an equiaxed crystal zone in the steel strand, leading to reduced centreline segregation and porosity. Whilst many numerical models consider the interaction of the applied electromagnetic field with the molten steel flow, considerably fewer take into account solidification, and none at all the macrosegregation of the alloying elements. This talk presents preliminary attempts to develop a model incorporating all of these features for a binary alloy, with a view to explaining the formation of undesirable "white bands" in the final solidified cast structure.