Swirling Flows in Side Blowing Reactors and Possible Advantages

Abstract

Side blown refining units are popularly used in the steel industries and include reactors such as, energy optimizing furnace, AOD converters and so on. In almost all such cases, the tuyeres have their axis orthogonal to the furnace wall and are located typically on the side walls, near the base of the reactor. Depending on requirements, either a reactive or inert gas or both in conjunction is supplied through one or more of such injectors, The present study suggests that at any given gas injection rate, orientation of side tuyeres together with their numbers can significantly influence the nature and intensity of bath agitation. Through an exploratory physical model study, it is demonstrated that by marginally re-orienting a pair of otherwise orthogonal horizontal tuyeres (i.e. entering at an angle of 10°–15° as opposed to the conventional, perpendicular to the reactor wall), a strong swirling motion could be imparted to the bath. Such rotational motion aided by the prevalent three dimensional flow was found to increase heat and mass transfer rates in the system by 25–30 %.