The Fluid Dynamics of Secondary Cooling Air-Mist Jets

For the conditions of thin-slab continuous casting, air-mist secondary cooling occurs in the transition-boiling regime, possibly as a result of an enhanced intermittent contact of high- momentum water drops with the hot metallic surface. The dynamics of the intermittent contact or wetting/dewetting process should be primarily dependent on the drop size, drop impact-velocity and -angle and water-impact flux, which results from the nozzle design and the interaction of the drops with the conveying and entrained air stream. The aim of this article was to develop a model for predicting the last three parameters based on the design and operating characteristics of air-mist nozzles and on experimentally determined drop-size distributions. To do this, the Eulerian fluid-flow field of the air in three dimensions and steady state and the Lagrangian velocities and trajectories of water drops were computed by solving the turbulent Navier–Stokes equation for the air coupled to the motion equation for the water drops. In setting this model, it was particularly important to specify appropriately the air-velocity profile at the nozzle orifice, as well as, the water-flux distribution, and the velocities (magnitude and angle) and exit positions of drops with the different sizes generated, hence special attention was given to these aspects. The computed drop velocities, water-impact flux distributions, and air-mist impact-pressure fields compared well with detailed laboratory measurements carried out at ambient temperature. The results indicate that under practical nozzle-operating conditions, the impinging-droplet Weber numbers are high, over most of the water footprint, suggesting that the droplets should establish an intimate contact with the solid surface. However, the associated high mean-droplet fluxes hint that this contact may be obstructed by drop interference at the surface, which would undermine the heat-extraction effectiveness of the impinging mist. The model also points out that a large proportion of fine drops would be prevented by the air-flow pattern from reaching the surface. The numerical analysis of air-mist jets under conditions relevant to secondary cooling had not been addressed before, and it constitutes a first step in an effort to develop a model to describe the dynamic and thermal interaction of dense-drop media with hot metallic surfaces.