from the conferences organized by TANGER Ltd.
Argon is the currently used and relatively simple method for refining liquid steel. This is most often done in a ladle furnace. Contemporary porous plugs used for refining liquid steel are characterized by a high degree of design sophistication. Further increasing their efficiency is difficult and inefficient. In response to growing process requirements, an innovative solution was developed in the form of a slotted gas-permeable module. The proposed design is based on a modular structure, representing a new concept in the construction of porous plugs. This solution allows for a significant increase in the active surface area modulus compared to the active surface area of currently used porous plugs. This article presents the results of numerical simulations and physical modeling of a new design solution for a slot-type gas-permeable module. Initial research - numerical simulations were conducted using a 1:1 scale ladle and a hot metal-argon system. The studies were comparative between the currently used technology (porous plug) and the proposed solution. To verify the numerical modeling results, tests were conducted on a physical water model of ladle in a 1:3.4 scale. Experimental results demonstrated high agreement with data obtained from CFD. The qualitative criteria for assessing the functionality of the tested solution included visualization results in the form of the gas column formation mechanism, the degree of gas dispersion in the model fluid, and gas bubble fragmentation. Quantitative criteria included the minimum time for complete mixing of the tracer in the model fluid volume and the proportion of slow-flow regions (dead zones) in the metal bath volume.
Keywords: Secondary metallurgy, ladle, porous plug, physical modeling, numerical modeling© This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.