Study of dispersion phenomenon in Creusot Loire Uddeholm reactor

Abstract

A study on the slag dispersion in bath smelting converter was undertaken. The aim was mainly to investigate the behaviour of the dispersed slag phase at high gas flow rate and low slag volume (10%) systems. For simulations purposes, water; paraffinoil and air were used in a one fifth model of the commercial 100 ton Creusot-Loire- Uddeholm converter to represent bulk steel, molten slag and gas respectively. Emulsion samples were collected by means of the specially made syringe. The experimental results revealed that the dispersed slag phase decreased with the vertical distance from the original interface between the liquid phases. The dispersed phase decreased also with the radial distance in the water plume zone towards the wall side. The holdup was apparently much observable on the right side than on the left side. Four dimensionless numbers defined the dispersion phenomenon through the dimensional analysis. The modified Froude Number ensured the correlation between both model and prototype. The standard error of the estimate and R-squared between the experimental and the calculated results were 3.7 ´10-4 and 0.97 respectively.