Modeling of metal-slag mass and momentum exchanges in gas-stirred ladles

Abstract

Ladle refining plays a key role in achieving the quality of the steel. Specifically the metal-slag mass exchange is studied through a scaled water physical model in which thymol, a solute, is added to the water (steel) and silicon oil (slag) picks up the thymol, while the ladle is agitated with the central gas injection and samples of water were taken to track the thymol concentration with time with a UV-visible spectrophotometer. Also, a mathematical model was developed and solved with the CFD code Fluent Ansys to represent the fluid flow and the mass transfer phenomena through the solution of the continuity, the turbulent momentum conservation and species mass conservation equations. A good agreement between the measured and the computed results regarding the thymol concentration evolution in water was found so the model was validated and it may be used to study metal-slag exchanges in the steel ladle.