Two-phase sink vortex suction mechanism and penetration dynamic characteristics in ladle teeming process

At the late stage of continuous casting (CC) ladle teeming, sink vortex can suck the liquid slag into tundish, and cause negative influences on the cleanliness of molten steel. To address this issue, a two-phase fluid mechanical modeling method for ladle teeming was proposed. Firstly, a dynamic model for vortex suction process was built, and the profiles of vortex flow field were acquired. Then, based on the level set method (LSM), a two-phase 3D interface coupling model for slag entrapment was built. Finally, in combination with high-order essentially non-oscillatory (ENO) and total variation diminishing (TVD) methods, a LSM-based numerical solution method was proposed to obtain the 3D coupling evolution regularities in vortex suction process. Numerical results show that the vortex with higher kinetic energy can form an expanded sandglass-shape region with larger slag fraction and lower rotating velocity; there is a pressure oscillation phenomenon at the vortex penetration state, which is caused by the energy shock of two-phase vortex penetration coupling.