Presentation: Spray Cooling at the Thermal and Fluids Engineering Conference (TFEC)

CIVS Ph.D. student, Haibo Ma, presented the research titled “Investigation of Spray Cooling Uniformity and Intensity during Continuous Casting of Steel” at the 5^th-6^th Thermal and Fluids Engineering Conference (TFEC) Virtual on May 28^th, 2021. Because the 5^th TFEC was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2021 conference was a combination of the 5^th and 6^th TFEC. The conference was organized by the American Society of Thermal and Fluids Engineers (ASTFE) to promote the science and applications of thermal and fluids engineering and related disciplines. The 5^th-6^th TFEC was hosted virtually through Whova, a professional virtual conference web platform, providing high-quality technical programming, live events, networking activities, and more.

In the meeting, Haibo gave an overview of the Steel Manufacturing Simulation and Visualization Consortium’s (SMSVC) research work on the spray cooling in secondary cooling during continuous casting of steel and also demonstrated methodologies and examples of implementation for the spray cooling model. Haibo introduced the CFD model developed to predict water spray cooling in continuous casting with a detailed consideration of atomization, droplet breakup and coalescence, droplet evaporation, and droplet-slab impingement heat transfer. He also presented validations of the model and the effect of water flow rate, standoff distance, spray direction, and nozzle-to-nozzle distance on the performance of spray cooling. Participants showed high interest in the presented model and fully affirmed the research conducted by CIVS students.