Supercomputing Steel at NCSA

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Steel-casting has always been more of an art than a science, particularly when mixing grades of steel. But as reported in this story from NCSA, Brian Thomas and his team are using supercomputers to model all aspects of the steel-casting process: fluid flow, transfer by nozzles, heat transfer, stresses and strains, and solidification.

Everyone knows if you find magnetic fields then molten steel will change its flow direction,” said Thomas. “But it’s extremely difficult to do measurements of molten metal under magnetic fields—it’s a very harsh environment.”

The computational models give Thomas a chance to explore this problem without venturing into the harsh, unsafe environment. It also saves money, compared to physical modeling. Read the Full Story.