Impact of heat transfer on spheroidization of titanium alloys

Abstract

The industrial application of the spheroidization process using high-temperature plasma is regarded as a good method for the conversion of irregularly shaped particles into a spherica shape. High temperature and controlled plasma conditions are required to obtain satisfactory results. Given this, a 3D model was used to simulate heat transfer from a source term to titanium-alloy particles using ANSYS Fluent software. Such models consider the effects of particle treatment on thermodynamic and transport properties of the plasma. This present study aims to investigate the impact of heat transfer on the particles and the effect of radiation energy loss on the particles, using numerical analysis. The results showed that the operating condition such mass flow was inversely proportional to the rate of heat transfer between plasma particles and the characteristics of the plasma gas, which was due to significant variation in radiation energy losses.