3D Simulation of the VAR process in non-axisymmetric geometries

While it is quite com­mon to use various dif­fe­rent geo­me­tries for the elec­t­ro-slag remel­ting pro­cess which is relatd to the VAR pro­cess, it is still com­mon to use cylind­ri­cal geo­me­tries for the VAR pro­cess alo­ne. A remel­ting clo­ser to the final dimen­si­on could e.g. pro­vi­de poten­ti­al savings in ener­gy and sub­se­quent pro­cess cos­ts. Due to the dif­fi­cul­ties cau­sed by the pro­cess in inves­ti­ga­ting the pro­cess and the very high qua­li­ty requi­re­ments at the same time, such a chan­ge in pro­cess con­trol, which is asso­cia­ted with many para­me­ter and geo­me­try chan­ges, is dif­fi­cult to achie­ve using expe­ri­men­tal methods and is also asso­cia­ted with enorm­ous cos­ts. Through the impro­ve­ment of com­pu­ter tech­no­lo­gy and simu­la­ti­on soft­ware, the pos­si­bi­li­ty of achie­ving a grea­ter inno­va­ti­on boost for such pro­ces­ses, which are dif­fi­cult to access from the out­side, through pro­cess simu­la­ti­ons is beco­ming more and more probable.

The IOB, which is spe­cia­li­zed in the model-based ana­ly­sis of ther­mal pro­ces­ses in metall­ur­gy, is inte­res­ted in the gene­ra­ti­on of inno­va­ti­ve fur­ther deve­lo­p­ment pos­si­bi­li­ties of the VAR pro­cess to trans­fer simi­lar advan­ta­ges of the dif­fe­rent vari­ants of the ESU pro­cess to the VAR pro­cess. Based on an exis­ting 2D VAR model for the inves­ti­ga­ti­on of axi­al­ly sym­me­tric geo­me­tries, a 3D model was deve­lo­ped which allows the map­ping of the VAR pro­cess in rec­tan­gu­lar geometries.

The exis­ting model is based on a 3 model cou­pling of elec­tro­ma­gne­tic FEM cal­cu­la­ti­on, ther­mo­ela­s­tic FEM and CFD cal­cu­la­ti­on to appro­xi­ma­te the various phe­no­me­na in the VAR process.

This allows con­clu­si­ons to be drawn about the soli­di­fi­ca­ti­on and flow beha­viour in the metal pool. This is par­ti­cu­lar­ly important for the mate­ri­al pro­per­ties to be adjus­ted and enables initi­al con­clu­si­ons to be drawn about the effects of a chan­ged pro­cess geometry.