B.G. Thomas, A. Sundararajan, P. Steen

Continuous Casting Consortium, National Science Foundation, Collaborative Research: NSF DMI 04-23794

Project Overview

The continuous casting of thin aluminum strip with a single-wheel melt spinning process offers great potential for low-cost production of finished products with unique surface textures.  To perfect this process requires fundamental understanding of the phenomena which control solidification shape, including flow oscillations in the melt pool, meniscus interaction with the wheel surface, intermittent solidification against the moving wheel, and thermal distortion.  Aided by measurements by collaborators at Cornell, advanced computational models are being applied at UIUC to achieve this new understanding.  Recent simulations match the contoured shape of the strip surface, based on the initial shape of the solidified meniscus, which is also the subject of model investigation.

National Science Foundation Support:

DMI 04-23794
09/30/2004 to 09/30/2007
NSF Program Director: Mary Reallf, (703) 292-7088

Industry Support and Partnerships:

Continuous Casting Consortium

Provided: Financial Support (CCC membership); In-kind Support; Facilities (water models and plant measurements); and Research direction, are provided by:

NSF Publications

Steen, P.H., B.G. Thomas, and S.P. Baker, “Collaborative Research: Contacting and Solidification in Casting-by-Design”, Proceedings of 2006 NSF Design, Service, and Manufacturing Grantees and Research Conference, St. Louis, Missouri, July 24-27, 2006, 2p. Click here for a PDF version. (124 KB)