Rheology of a Liquid Powder for Continuous Casting: The Critical Aspect in Its Technological Application

Abstract

It is herein considered a new product composed of solid–liquid dispersion of a conveniently formulated continuous casting powder in synthetic oil‐based esters, where hypothetical limit to consider this liquid slurry as a liquid powder is a mix with at least 50% in weight powder load preserving suitable fluidity for effective and stable pumping. After a relatively long and intense industrial application period, one of most critical points when using liquid powder for steel continuous casting proves to be mold feeding. This is mainly because of weird properties of such material which behaves as a non‐Newtonian fluid. A thorough rheological study on samples of liquid powder for continuous casting is carried out. Based on meticulous characterization of a set of laboratory samples, the dispersion flow curve is determined. Most commonly used rheological models are then tested for fitting with the experimental data. Sisko model is identified as the best fitting one. This model is then implemented to derive the system curve describing its behavior under its industrial application conditions. The mathematical process to apply Sisko model and its numerical solutions is explained. The results found are consistent with the field experience of the industrial application of the material under study.