Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to describe how electromagnetic stirring during continuous casting of ferrous and non-ferrous metals is applied in order to increase the homogeneity and the material properties by improving the grain refinement in the solidification process. The fluid flow and thermal modeling was performed for studying the metal wire pulling process, where melt is being stirred at the solidification front (SF) by electromagnetic forces. Transient simulation has been carried out in order to investigate the periodical character of the process. Design/methodology/approach - The numerical analysis was performed in 2D utilizing the rotational symmetry of the problem. First the electromagnetic fields were estimated using FEM and were subsequently exported as source terms in a coupled thermal and flow simulation with FVM. Findings - The presented numerical model estimated the most suitable position between the stirring coil and the SF to achieve high flow velocities which improve the grain refinement process. Originality/value - This work enables estimation of the melt solidification in an electromagnetic stirred continuous casting process with oscillating pull velocities. © 2011 Emerald Group Publishing Limited. All rights reserved.