Open Journal of Applied Sciences, 2016, 6, 593-600 http://www.scirp.org/journal/ojapps ISSN Online: 2165-3925 ISSN Print: 2165-3917 DOI: 10.4236/ojapps.2016.69058 September 6, 2016 Anchor-Shaped Design of a Submerged Entry Nozzle for the Continuous Casting of Steel Carlos A. Hernandez 1 , Miguel A. Barron 1 , Raul Miranda 2 1 Departamento de Materiales, Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana Azcapotzalco, Mexico City, Mexico 2 Departamento de Electronica, Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana Azcapotzalco, Mexico City, Mexico Abstract An anchor-shaped geometrical design for a Submerged Entry Nozzle for the slab con- tinuous casting of steel is presented in this work. To evaluate its performance, transient 3D multiphase numerical simulations were carried out using the Computational Fluid Dynamics technique. The performance of the proposed nozzle is numerically com- pared with that of a conventional cylindrical nozzle. Computer results show that the chance of formation of Karman’s vortexes and powder entrapment becomes small for the anchor-shaped SEN. Keywords Anchor-Shaped SEN, Computational Fluid Dynamics, Continuous Casting, Numerical Simulations, Slab Casting, Submerged Entry Nozzle 1. Introduction Nowadays, around 95% of the world raw steel is cast by means of the continuous cast- ing process [1]. The quality of the steel slabs is greatly influenced by the fluid flow in the continuous casting mold [2], and the geometry of the Submerged Entry Nozzle (SEN) is the most important parameter [3] [4]. In the continuous casting mold, mold powder is added in order to prevent heat losses, provide good lubrication, and protect the molten steel from air oxidation. However, sometimes the mold powder is entrapped into the molten steel, and this entrapment deteriorates the quality of the solid steel [5]. Formation of Karman’s vortexes on the meniscus of the mold is promoted by improper designs of the SEN. These vortexes cause powder entrapment and macro inclusions in the steel products [5]-[7]. The design of the SEN aims to minimize instabilities of the free surface to prevent the Karman’s vortexes. An elliptic SEN is proposed in [8]. In accor- dance to their authors, this design reduces the pressure difference around the nozzle, How to cite this paper: Hernandez, C.A., Barron, M.A. and Miranda, R. (2016) Anc- hor-Shaped Design of a Submerged Entry Nozzle for the Continuous Casting of Steel. Open Journal of Applied Sciences, 6, 593- 600. http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ojapps.2016.69058 Received: August 9, 2016 Accepted: September 3, 2016 Published: September 6, 2016 Copyright © 2016 by authors and Scientific Research Publishing Inc. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY 4.0). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Open Access