Original Article

Numerical simulation of fluid flow, heat transfer, and solidification in a round bloom curved mold with swirling flow nozzle angle

School of Metallurgical Engineering, Xi’an University of Architecture and Technology, Xi’an 710055, PR China

^* e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
^** e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Received: 29 November 2025
Accepted: 8 December 2025

Abstract

The swirling flow nozzle can accelerate molten steel overheating dissipation and mitigate the influence of the jet on the solidification shell by producing horizontal swirling on molten steel. It is essential to investigate an appropriate swirling flow nozzle structure to improve the flow field characteristics during continuous casting. A three-dimensional transient model of Φ600 mm continuous casting round bloom curved mold was developed. Numerical simulations have been carried out to investigate the influences of different swirling flow nozzle angles (0°/5°/10°/15°/20°) on the steel flow field, temperature field, solidified shell, and nozzle erosion in mold. The findings show that the stronger the entrainment capacity of the surrounding steel as the increase of swirling angle, the maximum velocity gradually decreases, the vortex center moves upward, and the flow field distribution becomes more uniform. Furthermore, the solidified shell thickness at the secondary cooling zone shows an increasing trend as the increase of swirling angle. The wall shear stress also increases with the swirling angle increases, resulting in greater nozzle erosion. When the SFN angle is 15°, the nozzle erosion is relatively small, which can significantly improve the nozzle washing effect, and the shell uniformity index is relatively high, which is conducive to the shell's stable growth.