Modeling thermal shock damage in refractory materials via direct numerical simulation (DNS)

In this paper, a computational investigation on thermo-mechanically induced damage in refractory materials resulting from severe thermal shock conditions is presented. On the basis of an idealized two-phase material system, molten aluminium thermal shock tests1 are computationally modeled by means of direct numerical simulations (DNS). The interfacial and bulk damage evolution within the material are described by thermo-mechanical cohesive zones and continuum damage mechanics (CDM), respectively. Reported experimental results1 are used to identify the parameters of the model. Furthermore, a parametric study is carried out to investigate the relative significance of various microstructure parameters in the context of thermal shock response.