Simulation of water and liquid-metal coolant heat transfer in continuous casting machine

M. A. Konovalov, V. V. Ulyanov, M. M. Koshelev, S. E. Kharchuk

Russian National Research Center Leypunsky Institute for Physics and Power Engineering, Obninsk, Russian Federation

Abstract: To date, heat to be dissipated in a continuous casting machine is discharged in the environment and not utilized much. A way of saving energy in steel production is replacing the water-cooling system with liquid-metal coolant to increase the temperature sufficiently to produce steam and, subsequently, electricity [1, 2]. We identified that lead-bismuth eutectic is the most suitable liquid coolant for continuous casting machines. We performed a simulation of the heat transfer process during steel solidification with various coolants with OpenFOAM. The cooling efficiency is virtually identical for water and lead-bismuth eutectic. The max dissipated heat flux occurs when the inlet coolant temperature is 180 ${}^\circ$C and the outlet coolant temperature is 400 ${}^\circ$C. To check the feasibility, we analyzed the steam generation efficiency. It would be $\sim$ 32 %. For six machines, 6.2 mln. kWh can be generated annually.

Keywords: continuous casting machine, steel solidification, mold, heat transfer, liquid-metal coolant.

DOI: 10.51790/2712-9942-2022-3-1-7