A COUPLED THERMO-CHEMO-MECHANICAL APPROACH TO SIMULATE THE OXIDATION OF SIC-BASED REFRACTORY CASTABLE
Résumé
Most of the industrial applications are subjected to severe work conditions in terms of heat, chemistry, and mechanical
constraints. Nowadays, the existence of a numerical tool accounting for all the physics that take place is a major challenge for
many industrial processes like steel and glass production, welding, nuclear fusion, etc. Some fully coupled theories exist in the
literature [Hu and Shen 2013]. Rambert et al. [Rambert et al. 2006] developed a numerical tool accounting for thermal,
transport, and mechanics but without the chemical reactions.
The goal of this study is to implement a coupled numerical tool within the framework of an irreversible thermodynamic
process for reactive porous multiphase materials using a User-defined Element (UEL) subroutine. To validate the tool, an
oxidation of a cylindrical shape SiC-based refractory castable under high temperature gradient is simulated in order to predict
the swelling effects [Merzouki et al. 2014]. Note that some parameters are estimated due to the lack of reliable experimental
data under high temperatures.