MOLD BEHAVIOR AND ITS INFLUENCE ON QUALITY IN THE CONTINUOUS-CASTING OF STEEL SLABS .1. INDUSTRIAL TRIALS, MOLD TEMPERATURE-MEASUREMENTS, AND MATHEMATICAL-MODELING

An extensive study has been conducted to elucidate mold behavior and its influence on quality during the continuous casting of slabs. The study combined industrial measurements, mathematical modeling, and metallographic examination of cast slab samples. The industrial measurements involved instrumenting an operating slab mold with 114 thermocouples in order to determine the axial mold wall temperature profiles for a wide range of casting conditions. A three-dimensional (3-D) heat-flow model of the mold wall was developed to characterize the heat fluxes in the mold quantitatively from the measured mold temperature data. Furthermore, heat-flow models were developed to examine steel solidification phenomena and mold flux behavior at the meniscus. Slab samples collected during the industrial trials were examined metallographically to evaluate the cast structure and defects. Owing to the length of the study, it is presented in two parts, the first of which describes the experimental techniques employed in the instrumentation of the mold together with the details of the industrial trials and mold temperature measurements. Also, the mathematical modeling technique applied to determine the axial heat-flux profiles from the measured mold temperature data is presented. It is shown that a fully 3-D model of the mold wall is needed to convert the measured temperatures to heat-flux profiles properly.