DYNA JOURNAL ENGINEERING

Key words:

Simulation, mathematical model, secondary steelmaking

Article type:

ARTICULO DE INVESTIGACION / RESEARCH ARTICLE

Section:

RESEARCH ARTICLES

In this work fluid dynamics and a basic study of the sulfur transfer at the steel/slag interface in the ladle during argon gas agitation was developed. Mass transfer and chemical reaction models coupled with Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) were employed. The multiphasic simulation was solved using the Eulerian model considering drag and non-drag forces, and the flow pattern was validated through Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) technique. The sulfur transfer rate was tracked by two approximations: (1) unidirectional constant rate Mass Transfer Model (MTM), and (2) unidirectional constant rate Mass Transfer Model coupled with Chemical Reaction Model (MTM+CRM) using Arrhenius equation. It was found that including the non-drag forces affects the fluid dynamics structure. Otherwise, the desulfurization rates increase as the argon gas flow rate increases, finding that the MTM model predicts ~15% less sulfur in the steel than the MTM+CRM, whose results were compared with plant measurements reports.