Study of Submerged Shroud Designs to Reduce Potential Stickers in a Slab Caster.

Tundish-to-mold shrouds, which include the submerged-entry nozzle (SEN), monotubes and submerged-entry shrouds, play a crucial role in transferring liquid steel to the mold. Most products are designed to work well within an ideal operating window. When operating under wide mold widths and slow casting speeds, the steel streams exiting the nozzle have low momentum and do not reach the narrow faces effectively. This can lead to suboptimal flow and temperature distribution within the mold. Sticker alarms were experienced at the Cleveland-Cliffs Burns Harbor caster under certain conditions. A comprehensive study was undertaken to evaluate the flow under these conditions using both computational and physical modeling techniques. The effect of several design features of the SEN on the flow in the SEN and eventually the mold is investigated and presented. Implementation of design features to achieve better flow distribution in the mold and reducing the potential for stickers are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]