Advances in Modeling of Steel Solidification with IDS

IDS (Inter-Dendritic Solidification) is a thermodynamic-kinetic software package that simulates phase changes, compound formation/dissolution, and solute distribution during solidification of steels as well as during their cooling/heating process after solidification. The software package also simulates solid-state phase transformations related to the austenite decomposition process at temperatures below 900/600 °C, and calculates thermophysical material properties from the liquid state down to room temperature. These data are needed in other models, such as heat transfer and thermal stress models, whose reliability heavily depends on the input data. The software package also features a database for thermodynamic, kinetic and microstructure data, as well as for several material properties. Owing to the short calculation times, the IDS tool is suitable for online applications. This paper presents IDS and its modules with the latest developments and validations, along with examples of modeling results.