Heat Transfer and Solidification of Molten Iron in a Pipe

The effect of the pipe wall temperature on the heat transfer and the internal solidification phenomena during the pouring of pure molten iron in a pipe is studied in this work. A mathematical model consisting in the motion, mass balance and heat equations is proposed. The Reynolds Stress Model is employed to simulate turbulence. The mathematical model considering transient three-dimensional simulations is numerically solved using the Computational Fluid Dynamics technique. To simplify the mushy zone problem, pure iron considered. Numerical simulations show that a pipe wall temperature of 300 K promotes early solidification and blockage, and yields strong internal gradients of velocity and temperature. Besides, a pipe wall temperature of 1000 K prevents solidification and promotes a more homogeneous flow and temperatures contours of molten iron in the pipe.