Numerical simulation of vertical mold casting temperature field of copper anode plates

Abstract

As an important raw material for refining copper by electrolysis, copper anode plates are mainly manufactured by disc casting machine. However, those copper anode plates frequently have such defects as uneven thickness, broken lugs, porosity inside plates, and low production efficiency and low yield rate, failing to meet the demands of electrolysis for the quality and quantity of anode plates. To develop a new vertical mold casting process for copper anode plates and study the influence of cooling on the life of the machine during vertical mold casting, two design schemes of cooling channels for the high-temperature working mode of copper anode plate production were put forward in this paper, and ANSYS was introduced to simulate and analyze the flow state, flow rate and temperature field of the cooling water. The results indicated that the vertical mold with the double-cycle cooling channel is about 2 °C lower than that with the single-cycle cooling channel. The temperature of the former at point A outside and point B near the lug inside the vertical mold is 20 °C–30 °C higher than that of the latter. The temperature of vertical mold casting copper anode plates with double-cycle cooling channel is below 700 °C when casting for 50 s, suggesting that the copper anode plates have more uniform temperature and higher cooling efficiency with the double-cycle cooling channel, which can prolong the service life of the casting machine. The research results lay a theoretical foundation for the manufacture of copper anode plates and the improved design of the copper vertical mold casting machine.