Solidification in remelting processes

The two remelting processes of electroslag remelting and vacuum arc remelting are widely used in industry for the manufacture of high-quality steels, superalloys and titanium alloys. Originally employed for refining, they are now used principally as solidification controlling steps in ingot manufacture. Since the boundary conditions of the process can be readily measured, many attempts have been made to model the ingot solidification. In this work, we review the models and indicate their success in application. We conclude that although the present computational fluid dynamics models have greatly assisted in our understanding of the basic processes, as yet they are insufficient to describe the detail required for useful application in industry.