Fundamental Study on Effects of Various Factors on Fluid Behavior during Intermediate Deslagging of MURC (Multi-Refining Converter) Process

Abstract

To achieve high-efficiency intermediate deslagging in MURC (Multi-Refining Converter) process is an important issue. In order to obtain the basic knowledge concerning the fluid behavior during intermediate deslagging, simulation using water model was carried out and the effects of tilting pattern, properties of liquids and the shape of vessel mouth (installation of weir) were evaluated. As the results, the followings were observed.
1)The metal starts spilling before reaching the inclined angle that is geometrically calculated from the remaining volume inside the vessel due to the uplift of metal edge.
2)Reduction of deslagging time with the same deslagged amount becomes possible by using the slowdown pattern in tilting rate near the end of deslagging.
3) Metal is easy to spill when slag viscosity is high and the density difference between metal and slag is small.
4) Deslagging is improved by installation of weir to the vessel mouth.
Based on the results, a simple model was built by focusing on the balance between shear force and gravitational force (buoyant force) and the metal-spill-point and deslagged amount were estimated. Furthermore, from the detailed analysis using computational fluid dynamics, the above-mentioned phenomena were reproduced.