Direct-chill (DC) casting solver

directChillFoam is based on buoyantPimpleFoam, a transient solver for buoyant, turbulent flow of compressible fluids and heat-transfer. directChillFoam adds the following capabilities to the solver:

  • Solid motion prescribed at a casting speed (SI units).

  • Handling solidification including mushy and slurry zones in the transition region.

  • Robin boundary condition to prescribe the direct-chill (water cooling upon billet exit from mould).

  • A solute transport solver

Definition in file directChillFoam.C

Installation

wmake

wmake is OpenFOAM’s own compilation script.

Pre-requisites:

In the directChillFoam/applications/solver/heatTransfer/directChillFoam directory, run:

$ wmake

CMake

Pre-requisites:

In the repository root directory (containting the main CMakeLists.txt), run:

$ cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -S . -B build # Build everything in a separate directory
$ cd build            # Enter build directory
$ make VERBOSE=1      # Compile and link all libraries and directChillFoam, and copy files to OpenFOAM path

To compile directChillFoam in Debug mode, run:

$ cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug -S . -B debug # Build everything in a separate directory
$ cd debug            # Enter debug directory
$ make VERBOSE=1      # Compile and link all libraries and directChillFoam, and copy files to OpenFOAM path

Running the application

In the case directory, run:

$ directChillFoam

Theory

Full details of the theory behind the DC casting solver implementation can be found in G.S. Bruno Lebon, Georges Salloum-Abou-Jaoude, Dmitry Eskin, Iakovos Tzanakis, Koulis Pericleous, Philippe Jarry, “Numerical modelling of acoustic streaming during the ultrasonic melt treatment of direct-chill (DC) casting”, Ultrasonics Sonochemistry 54 (2019) 171-182 doi:10.1016/j.ultsonch.2019.02.002.

Nomenclature

Table 1 Variables used in direct chill casting simulations.

Variable

Description

g_env

Coherency fraction

rho1

Solid density [kg/m^3]

rho2

Liquid density [kg/m^3]

mu2

Dynamic viscosity of liquid [Pa s]

DAS

Dendrite arm spacing [m]