Metals Processing Simulation Laboratory

Location & Contact

Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
345 Mechanical Engineering Building
1206 West Green Street
Urbana, IL 61801

Phone: 217-244-4656 or 217-244-2859
Fax: 217-244-6534

Purpose

The facility enables research teams to simulate fluid flow, heat transfer, and stress generation of a range of metallurgical processes, and especially, the continuous casting of steel slabs.

Computational Infrastructure

The laboratory operates over 10 computer workstations including IBM, SGI, SUN, and HP systems, plus Macintosh computers and high-end Pentium processors. These systems connect to supercomputing resources at NCSA (National Center for Supercomputing Applications).

In-House Software Tools

• CON2D: Thermal-stress analysis of solidifying shells
• CON1D, ROUND1D, STRIP1D: One-dimensional heat transfer analysis for various casting formats
• MIX1D: Tundish and mold intermixing during grade transitions

Commercial Software

The lab utilizes CFX, FLUENT, FLOW3D, ABAQUS, FIDAP, and TEKPLOT for specialized modeling and visualization tasks.

Supporting Facilities

Materials Research Laboratory provides microstructural analysis equipment; the Mechanical Science and Engineering Department maintains machine shop and metallography resources for sample preparation.