G. Moran

Three-dimensional free surface modelling in an unstructured mesh environment for metal processing applications

In the casting of metals, tundish flow, welding, converters, and other metal processing applications, the behaviour of the fluid surface is important. In aluminium alloys, for example, oxides formed on the surface may be drawn into the body of the melt where they act as faults in the solidified product affecting cast quality. For this reason, accurate description of wave behaviour, air entrapment, and other effects need to be modelled, in the presence of heat transfer and possibly phase change. The authors have developed a single-phase algorithm for modelling this problem. The Scalar Equation Algorithm (SEA) (see Refs. 1 and 2), enables the transport of the property discontinuity representing the free surface through a fixed grid. An extension of this method to unstructured mesh codes is presented here, together with validation. The new method employs a TVD flux limiter in conjunction with a ray-tracing algorithm, to ensure a sharp bound interface. Applications of the method are in the filling and emptying of mould cavities, with heat transfer and phase change.

Free surface Nvier-Stokes flows with simultaneous heat transfer and solidification/melting

A mathematical model to analyse some key aspects of the metal cast process is described involving the filling of the mould by liquid metal and simultaneously, undergoing both cooling and solidification (re-melting) phase change. A computational solution procedure based upon a finite volume discretisation approach, on both structured and unstructured meshes, is described. The overall flow solution procedure is based on the pressure correction algorithm SIMPLE suitably adapted to: (a) solve for the free surface with minimal smearing by the SEA algorithm, and (b) solve for the solidification/melting phase change using an enthalpy conservation algorithm developed by Voller, but with its root in the work of Crank many years ago.