Numerical investigation of the hydrodynamic conditions in a multi-strand CC tundish with closed outlets

In industrial conditions there are situations when the CC machine works under emergency. It can be result of mechanical or electrical causes, breakout of billet or problem with supplying new parts of liquid steel to the CC machine. Asa consequence one or two outlets of the tundish should be closed. However, closing one of the outlets influences the hydrodynamic and thermal conditions occurring in the tundish. Thus, the important information is which of the outlets should be closed to conduct further continuous casting process correctly. The following research was conducted to analyze the influence of liquid steel flow behaviour in the multi-strand tundish when all outlets do not work. Such problem was solved by means of numerical methods based on Navier-Stokes equations (k-e standard turbulence model). Numerical simulations were done using the educational version of CFD program (Computational Fluid Dynamics) - ANSYSFluent. Asa result forecasted velocity fields and RTD curves (Residence Time Distribution) were obtained. RTD characteristics were used to determine kinetics of liquid steel mixing and also to calculate parts of particular flow areas for studied cases.