Model of Microalloy Precipitation during Continuous Casting and Reheating

A comprehensive set of models of precipitate formation during steel processing has been developed. In this work, it is applied to investigate Nb(C,N) precipitation in thin microalloyed steel slabs during continuous casting, reheating in a tunnel furnace and water quenching relative to the position with the slab and alloy content. The models include a transient heat-conduction and solidification model of temperature evolution (CON1D), a multi-component equilibrium model of precipitate phase stability to compute the supersaturation, and a Particle-Size-Grouping (PSG) model to simulate the quantities, compositions, and size distributions of the precipitates as they evolve throughout the process. The results are compared with measurements conducted on steel samples obtained from the commercial plant. New insights into precipitate formation during hot-charging are presented