Development of three dimensional transient numerical heat conduction model with growth of oxide scale for steel billet reheat simulation

This paper presents development of numerical heat conduction model for prediction of transient three dimensional temperature field in the billet. The model is applied to billet heating process in the reheat furnace. The discretization of governing equation is done by control volume approach and implicit scheme of finite difference method. The model captures various time dependent boundary conditions corresponding to the billet reheat in the reheat furnace, in addition to this it also accounts for the growth of oxide scale layer on the billet surfaces during reheat simulations. The set of discretized equations is solved using own developed MATLAB® code. The proposed model is capable of predicting the temperature field in the billet and scale growth on the billet surfaces. The model is validated with analytical results and published experimental results. The results obtained through the model simulations are in concurrence with the anticipated trend. The proposed methodology of numerical modeling will be helpful for the temperature and scale growth predictions, which are vital for a variety of reasons like energy efficiency, process optimization, roll force calculations, carbon segregation control and product microstructure control, etc.