Solidification and cooling of a continuously cast blank and parallel heating of a crystallizer is, from the viewpoint of thermokinetics, a very complicated problem of non-stationary heat and mass transfer. Nowadays, the solving of such a problem is impossible without numerical models of the temperature field not only for the blank itself, while it is being processed through the whole concasting machine (CCM), but for the crystallizer as well. This process can be described by the Fourier or the Fourier-Kirchhoff equations, which can not be solved exactly. An original three-dimensional (3D) numerical model (the first of the two) of a CCM temperature field had been assembled. This model is able to simulate the temperature field of a CCM as a whole, or any of its parts. Simultaneously, together with the numerical computation, the experimental research and measuring have to take place not only to be confronted with the numerical model, but also to make it more accurate in the course of the process. The second original numerical model for dendritic segregation of elements assesses critical points of blanks from the viewpoint of their increased susceptibility to crack and fissure. In order to apply this model, it is necessary to analyze the heterogeneity of samples of the constituent elements (Mn, Si and others) and impurities (P, S and others) in characteristic places of the solidifying blank. The numerical model, based on measurement results obtained by an electron micro-probe, generates distribution curves showing the dendritic segregation of the analyzed element, together with the distribution coefficients of the elements between the liquid and solid states.
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