Simulation of Air-Jet Cooling of a Moving Steel Block during On-Line Heat Treatment

L. X. Y. Xiao, Y. Wang, L. C. Xu, Z. B. Li, W. L. Huo, and M. X. Gao

DOI: https://doi.org/10.64486/m.66.2.4
Online publication date: August 3, 2026

Abstract: Precise control of jet cooling rate is critical to optimizing the on-line heat treatment process for steel rails. Numerical simulation can effectively shorten the research cycle and reduce costs. Most existing simulations of jet cooling for high-temperature steel are based on static nozzles and stationary rails, which deviate from the continuous movement of rails in actual production and compromise simulation accuracy. To improve the consistency between simulation and real working conditions, this study adopts sliding mesh and overset mesh techniques to numerically simulate jet cooling of a moving high-temperature steel block. Reciprocating experiments are conducted to compare simulation results under three conditions—static, moving with sliding mesh, and moving with overset mesh—with experimental data. Results show that the average relative errors compared with experiments are 18.01 %, 14.88 %, and 13.36 %, respectively, and the relative deviations of cooling uniformity standard deviation against experimental data are 92.59 %, 7.41 %, and 22.22 %, respectively. In conclusion, the overset mesh model yields higher accuracy in overall temperature field prediction, while the sliding mesh model achieves better agreement with experimental results in terms of cooling uniformity. Both dynamic mesh methods improve consistency with actual working conditions compared with the stationary model.

Keywords: moving steel block; air-jet impingement cooling; overset mesh; sliding mesh; transient heat transfer; cooling uniformity

This article is published online first and will appear in Metalurgija, Vol. 66, Issue 2 (2027).