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Acta Metall Sin  2018, Vol. 54 Issue (1): 118-128    DOI: 10.11900/0412.1961.2017.00225
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Experimental and Numerical Simulation Study on Layer Casting Method for Composition Homogeneityon Ingot Casting
Jun LI1,2(), Junge WANG1, Fengli REN1, Honghao GE1, Qiaodan HU1, Mingxu XIA1, Jianguo LI1
1 School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China
2 Collaborative Innovation Center for Advanced Ship and Deep-Sea Exploration, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China
Cite this article: 

Jun LI, Junge WANG, Fengli REN, Honghao GE, Qiaodan HU, Mingxu XIA, Jianguo LI. Experimental and Numerical Simulation Study on Layer Casting Method for Composition Homogeneityon Ingot Casting. Acta Metall Sin, 2018, 54(1): 118-128.

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Abstract  

Macrosegregation, or compositional heterogeneity, is a very common and serious defect in large steel ingots, which is hard to remove in the following processing procedures. It not only decides the final properties of the product, but also restricts downstream hot working processing severely. This compositional heterogeneity occurs due to the relative motion between the liquid and solid phases during solidification. Therefore, it is necessary to develop an effective method to manufacture large ingots with less macrosegregation. In this work, a novel casting method was proposed to alleviate macrosegregation of large ingots, i.e., layer casting (LC). With this method, alloy melt will be poured into the mould step by step, so that the melt could be solidified layer by layer and the macrosegregation will be alleviated. Both experimental and numerical studies were carried out to verify the feasibility and effectiveness of LC method. Two small Al-4.0%Cu (mass fraction) ingots were cast using two casting methods, conventional casting method, in which melt was cast into mould in one stage, and LC method, in which melt was cast into mould in several stages. Each ingot was sectioned into two parts along the center line, and then the specimens were measured by optical emission spectrometry to obtain the compositional distribution of Cu. Both severe bottom negative segregation and top positive segregation zones were observed in the ingot fabricated by conventional casting method. More homogeneity of compositional distribution was observed in the ingot fabricated by LC method, and the max negative and positive macrosegregation along the center line decreased by 24.6% and 77.2%, respectively. At the same time, a mixed three-phase (equiaxed, columnar and liquid) solidification model was employed to study the solidification processing in large ingots. The macrosegregation formation processes of 100 t and 13 t steel ingots fabricated by both conventional casting and LC methods were numerically simulated. The simulation results indicated that LC method had the capability of alleviating macrosegregation of large steel ingots significantly, compared with conventional casting method. With the increment of ingot size and amount of ladles, LC method had more significant effect on the alleviation of macrosegregation in large ingots. The mechanism of macrosegregation alleviation of LC method was analyzed.

Key words:  large ingot      layer casting      macrosegregation      numerical simulation     
Received:  09 June 2017     
ZTFLH:  TG244.2  
Fund: Supported by National Key Research and Development Program of China (No.2017YFB0305300), Joint Funds of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.U1660203), National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.51404152) and Shanghai Pujiang Program (No.14PJ1404800)

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https://www.ams.org.cn/EN/10.11900/0412.1961.2017.00225     OR     https://www.ams.org.cn/EN/Y2018/V54/I1/118

Fig.1  Schematic of layer casting (LC) (c1, c2,, cn—melt composition of each ladle; T1, T2,, Tn—pouring temperature of each ladle; t1, t2,, tn—pouring time interval for each ladle)
Fig.2  Al-4.0%Cu ingots fabricated by conventional casting (a) and LC (b) methods (Blue dots indicate the sampling points for composition measurement)
Fig.3  Macrosegregation distributions of longitudinal sections of ingots fabricated by conventional casting (a) and LC (b) methods
Process Range Standard deviation
Conventional 0.292 0.108
LC 0.137 0.049
Table 1  Macrosegregation distribution characteristics along the center line of ingots fabricated by conventional casting and LC methods
Fig.4  Macrosegregation distribution curves, on which the macrosegregation indexs and corresponding coordinates along the central line of some points are given, along the center line of ingots fabricated by conventional casting and LC methods
Fig.5  Schematic of boundary and initial conditions of 100 t steel ingot (H—heat transfer coefficient, Tw—wall temperature, T0—initial temperature, c0—initial concentration, g—gravitational acceleration)
Fig.6  Final macrosegregation contour maps of 100 t steel ingots fabricated by conventional casting method (a), LC method of 5 ladles (b) and 10 ladles (c), predicted by numerical simulations
Fig.7  Macrosegregation distribution curves, on which the macrosegregation indexs and corresponding coordinates along the central line of some points are given, along the center line of 100 t steel ingots fabricated by conventional casting method, LC method of 5 ladles and 10 ladles, predicted by numerical simulations
Simulated ingot Range Standard deviation
Conventional 100 t 0.549 0.183
LC of 5 ladles 100 t 0.208 0.024
LC of 10 ladles 100 t 0.149 0.021
Conventional 13 t 0.381 0.109
LC of 10 ladles 13 t 0.214 0.035
Table 2  Macrosegregation distribution characteristics along the center line of steel ingots fabricated by conventional casting and LC methods, predicted by numerical simulations
Fig.8  Macrosegregation distribution curves, on which the macrosegregation indexs and corresponding coordinates along the central line of some points are given, along the center line of 13 t steel ingots fabricated by conventional casting method and LC method of 10 ladles, predicted by numerical simulations
Fig.9  Velocity distributions (left half) and solidification conditions (right half) of ingots fabricated by conventional casting method (a), LC method of 5 ladles (b) and 10 ladles (c), after casting 0.5 h (vlmax—maximum velocity of liquid metal, fl—liquid volume fraction)
Fig.10  Velocity distributions of equiaxed grains (left half) and macrosegregation distributions (right half) of ingots fabricated by conventional casting method (a), LC method of 5 ladles (b) and 10 ladles (c), after casting 0.5 h (vemax—maximum velocity of equiaxed crystal)
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