Water modeling of melt flow in continuous casting tundishes has been extensively used to optimize tundish designs. Most of the water modeling studies have been carried out under isothermal conditions with water at room temperature, and have employed full as well as reduced scale models. In such modeling studies, a reduced scale model can not simultaneously satisfy the Reynolds as well as Froude similarity criteria. In this paper, the importance and validity of these criteria are discussed. On the other hand, in a tundish with heat losses and with the changing temperature of the incoming metal stream from the ladle, the melt flow in tundish may become non-isothermal. In modeling such a flow, 'Tundish Richardson number' which represents the ratio of the buoyancy to inertial forces, may be used as the similarity criteria. The Residence Time Distribution (RTD) of the fluid flowing through a tundish is normally characterized by a 'combined model'. Although this model was proposed over 20 years ago, most researchers have either used it incorrectly or made an assumption in analyzing the melt flow in tundishes. Both approaches may lead to incorrect and misleading calculations of the dead volume. The combined model has been discussed and its correct application to tundish melt flow has been outlined in this paper.
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