Control of free surface shape in the electromagnetic casting process

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In the continuous casting process, molten metal contacts the mold wall and the molten metal surface is subject to the mold oscillation. The mold oscillation results in the oscillation marks on the surface of solidified steel, which has undesirable effects on the quality of slabs. In order to reduce the oscillation marks by achieving soft contact of molten metal with the mold surface, alternating magnetic field is applied to the surface of molten metal. However, if the magnetic field strength becomes too strong, the melt flow induced by the magnetic field. causes the instability of the molten metal surface, which has also the bad influence on the slab quality. Therefore, it is very important to choose the optimal position of the inductor coil and the optimal level of electric power to minimize the surface defects. In the present work, as a first step toward the optimization problem of the process, numerical studies are performed to investigate the effects of coil position and the electric power level on the meniscus shape and the flow field. As numerical tools, the boundary integral equation method(BIEM) is used for the magnetic field analysis and the finite difference method (FDM) with orthogonal grid generation is used for the flow analysis.