The presented results of investigations are part of a larger study focused on the optimization of the flow and mixing of liquid steel in the industrial tundish of continuous casting machine. The numerical simulations were carried out concern the analysis of hydrodynamic conditions of liquid steel flow in a tundish operating in one of the national steelworks. Numerical simulations were performed using the commercial code ANSYS Fluent. The research concerns two different speeds of steel casting. In real conditions, these speeds are the most commonly used in the technological process when casting two different groups of steel. As a result of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) calculations, predicted spatial distributions of velocity and liquid steel turbulence fields and residence time distribution (RTD) curves were obtained. The volume fractions of different flows occurring in the tundish were also calculated. The results of the research allowed a detailed analysis of the influence of casting speed on the formation of hydrodynamic conditions prevailing in the reactor.

Purging the liquid steel with inert gases is a commonly used treatment in secondary metallurgy. The main purposes for which this method is used are: homogenization of liquid steel in the entire volume of the ladle, improvement of mixing conditions, acceleration of the absorption process of alloy additives and refining of liquid steel from non-metallic inclusions. The basic processing parameters of this treatment are: gas flow rate and the level of gas dispersion in liquid steel. The level of gas dispersion depends on the design and location of the porous plug in the ladle. Therefore, these parameters have a significant impact on the phenomena occurring in the contact zone of liquid steel with slag. Their improper selection may cause secondary contamination of the bath with exogenous inclusions from the slag, or air atmosphere due to discontinuity of the slag and exposure of the excessive surface of the liquid steel free surface. The article presents the results of modelling research of the effect of liquid steel purging with inert gases on phenomena occurring in this zone.

The research was carried out using the physical (water) model of steel ladle. As a modelling liquid representing slag, paraffin oil was used, taking into account the conditions of similarity with particular reference to the kinematic viscosity. The results of the conducted research were presented in the form of visualization of phenomena occurring on the surface of the model liquid free surface in the form of photographs. The work is a part of a bigger study concerning modelling of ladle processes.

The paper evaluates two approaches of numerical modelling of solidification of continuously cast steel billets by finite element method, namely by the numerical modelling under the Steady-State Thermal Conditions, and by the numerical modelling with the Traveling Boundary Conditions. In the paper, the 3D drawing of the geometry, the preparation of computational mesh, the definition of boundary conditions and also the definition of thermo-physical properties of materials in relation to the expected results are discussed. The effect of thermo-physical properties on the computation of central porosity in billet is also mentioned. In conclusion, the advantages and disadvantages of two described approaches are listed and the direction of the next research in the prediction of temperature field in continuously cast billets is also outlined.

Detailed studies of the movement of liquid steel (hydrodynamics) on a real object are practically impossible. The solution to this problem are physical modelling carried out on water models and numerical modelling using appropriate programs. The method of numerical modelling thanks to the considerable computing power of modern computers gives the possibility of solving very complex problems.

The paper presents the results of model tests of liquid flow through tundish. The examined object was model of the twonozzle tundish model. The ANSYS Fluent program was used to describe the behavior of liquid in the working area of the tundish model. Numerical simulations were carried out using two numerical methods of turbulence description: RANS (Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes) – model k-ε and LES (Large Eddy Simulation). The results obtained from CFD calculations were compared with the results obtained using the water model.

The article presents the results of investigations performed on segregation of elements in the billets. The research were performed under standard industrial conditions, during high carbon steel production cycle. Probes (templates with the thickness of 20 mm) were taken from billets with square cross-section of 160 mm. Segregation of elements was determined based on the quantitative analysis of results performed by using spark spectrometry pursuant to PN-H-04045. Changes in concentrations of elements were analysed along two cross-sections. Element contents were performed at points distanced from each other by approx. 10 mm. The segregation of carbon, sulphur and phosphorus was determined for different billets.