Effect of Salt Tracer Dosages on the Mixing Process in the Water Model of a Single Snorkel Refining Furnace

Abstract

The improvement in mixing conditions in a vacuum refining unit plays an important role in enhancing the purity and decarburization of molten steel. Mixing time is an important index to evaluate the operation efficiency of a metallurgical reactor. However, in water models, the effect of salt tracer dosages on the measured mixing time in a vacuum reactor is not clear. In this study, a water model of a Single Snorkel Refining Furnace (SSRF) was established to study the effect of salt solution tracer dosages on the mixing time of monitor points. The experimental results show that, in some areas at the top of the ladle, the mixing time decreases first and then increases when increasing the tracer dosage. Numerical simulation results show that, when the tracer dosage increases, the tracer flows downwards at a higher pace from the vacuum chamber to the bottom of the ladle. This may compensate for the injection time interval of large dosage cases. However, the mass fraction of the KCl tracer at the right side of the bottom is the highest, which indicates that there may be a dead zone. For the dimensionless concentration time curves and a 99% mixing time, at the top of the vacuum chamber, the curve shifts to the right side and the mixing time decreases gradually with the increase in tracer dosage. At the bottom of the ladle, with the increase in tracer dosage, the peak value of the dimensionless concentration time curve is increased slightly. The mixing time of the bottom of the ladle decreases significantly with the increase in tracer dosage. However, in the dead zone, the mixing time will increase when the tracer dosage is large. At the top of the ladle, the effect of the tracer dosage is not obvious. The mixing time of the top of the ladle decreases first and then increases when increasing the tracer dosage. In addition, the mixing time of the top of the ladle is the shortest, which means that sampling at the top of the ladle in industrial production cannot represent the entire mixing state in the ladle.

Assessment of Inclusion Removal Ability in Refining Slags Containing Ce2O3

“…A great number of studies have focused on the analysis of inclusions during the whole steelmaking process [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15]. Meanwhile, the inclusion formation and control in a steelmaking unit, for example, a ladle furnace [16][17][18], vacuum degassing [19][20][21][22], Ruhrstahl-Heraeus [23][24][25][26][27], and tundish [28][29][30][31] have also been widely studied.…”

Analysis of Mixing Efficiency in a Stirred Reactor Using Computational Fluid Dynamics

“…Murthy, Zhong Zhang, Sossa-Echeverria, Szalai, and others have dedicated their works to evidencing the influence of tanks and impeller geometries [16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23]35,36]. Some of them have used the residence time distribution method to analyze efficiency in a stirred tank [12,15,[26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][41][42][43]. Others have simulated dissolutions in tanks and validated these procedures as appropriate for establishing physical parameters to improve mixing [11,12,[16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29].…”

“…Tamburini et al have produced similar works considering solid-liquid suspension and predicting the solid particle distribution and the minimum impeller speed for homogeneous mixing. To conclude, an understanding of the hydrodynamics phenomena involved is very important to improve actual industrial practices in many metallurgical processes [17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30]35,36,[39][40][41][42][44][45][46][47][48][49]. Some authors have been studying problems of phenomena related to fluids confined in industrial tanks such as the solid suspension of particles involving chemical reactions evaluating fluid hydrodynamics behaviors under symmetrical and asymmetrical jet conditions [32][33][34][36][37][38][39][40][43][44][45][50][51][52].…”

“…Some authors have been studying problems of phenomena related to fluids confined in industrial tanks such as the solid suspension of particles involving chemical reactions evaluating fluid hydrodynamics behaviors under symmetrical and asymmetrical jet conditions [32][33][34][36][37][38][39][40][43][44][45][50][51][52]. Authors have also been developing numerical methods and new approaching techniques for fluid evaluation [6][7][8]14,15,[31][32][33][34]42,43,50], inclusively, other metallurgical problems where pyro-processing and the hydrodynamics of liquid metals can be analyzed to improve industrial practices [11,12,[16][17][18][26][27][28][29][31][32][33][34][41][42][43].…”

The effect of salt tracer dosage on the transport and mixing in a water model of gas stirred ladle with a moderate gas flow rate

“…Chen et al [14][15][16][17] evaluated the downward flow of salt tracers in tundishes both by water model and numerical models. The effect of salt tracers on the mixing in a refining furnace was also studied [18][19]. For gas-stirred ladle systems, Chen et al [20] reviewed that the volume ratio between salt solution tracer and water ranged from 0.0076×10 -3 to 19.6×10 -3 .…”