Solidification model of a casting process and its irreplaceability

Digitalization of the real manufacturing process according to Industry 4.0 becomes necessary for industrial producers. Digitalization increases their competitiveness on the market through optimization of processes in the production chain. The rise of prices of raw materials, water shortage, and the effort of the society to reduce the CO2 and greenhouse gas emissions must be compensated by lower production costs. Metallurgical processes and steel production are this case. In the last year, the price of iron ore and scrap metal has risen by more than a third, which is directly proportional to the steel price. The consequence is the increase in the construction sector, car production, white goods, etc. There is a strong assumption that in the next years, steel prices will remain relatively high. Significant cost savings in the production can be achieved by the minimization of the number of rejected slabs and billets, which need to be scraped as well as by the minimization of the cooling water consumption. This paper shows the potential of the use of the original solidification model BrDSM. This long-term validated solidification model represents a digital copy of the real continuous casting process. In the future modern steelmaking process, these models will be irreplaceable.