THERMAL CYCLING SIMULATION DURING REMELTING PROCESS OF THE STEEL ASTM A743-CA6NM

Camila Almeida Martins¹; Jhon Jairo Ramirez-Behainne¹

¹ Federal University of Technology-Paraná

doi:10.20906/CPS/COB-2015-1361

Resumo

This study aimed to model numerically the thermal cycling resulting from the steel ASTM A743-CA6NM remelting process, as well as the temperature distribution during the cooling of the test body. The problem was solved with the support of the commercial software ANSYS / FLUENT ® 14.5 for the three-dimensional case using the finite volume method. The following simplifying assumptions were adopted: heat loss by natural convection, absence of radiation, no phase change, concentrated heat source, and thermophysical properties independent of temperature. The results were analyzed for two different current intensities: 90A and 130A, and compared with experimental measurements. The peak temperatures of the thermocouples near the fusion line for the current of 130A were well represented by the numerical model, with a maximum deviation of 9.62%. In the case of the more remote thermocouples from the fusion line, the best results were obtained for the current of 90A, not exceeding 5% of deviation. In general, it was found that the test body is heated and cooled faster than in the simulations. This can be considered as a consequence of the simplification in material properties, assumed constant with respect to temperature. The results of this study demonstrate that, given the adopted simplifications, the numerical model was able to satisfactorily reproduce the experimentally measured thermal cycles.

Palavras-chave: Thermal Cycling; Remelting Process; Numerical Simulation; Finite Volume Method