Development of a numerical model to predict areas of plume eye of ladle furnace process

Abstract

The effects of operating parameters on the behavior of plume eye area were investigated with a numerical simulation model and water model experiments for ladle furnace process. The concept of total energy equivalence at the interface of slag and melt was adopted in the model for predicting the position of the slag/melt boundary of plume eye. The predicted results of plume eye area were well matched with water model experiments of wide range of gas flow (0.5 l/min~10 l/min) and other researchers’ results with various design of ladle of water model experiments and field operations. Numerical simulation and water model experiments also showed that fluid flow in the ladle was changed by increasing gas flow rates and the shape of flow patterns was strongly affected by the size of plume eye. By parametric study using simulation results and water model experiments, it was found that plume eye area is proportional to the square root of gas flow rate and is inversely proportional to the square root of initial slag height when the other parameters were keep constants.