INCLUSION BEHAVIOR IN STEEL AND ALUMINUM MAKING REACTORS

摘要

The control of inclusion population remains an important issue for the steelmaking and aluminum making industries where the removal of particles is mainly operated by flotation and gravity separation. Argon gas is injected through porous plugs in the ladle of liquid steel whereas a rotating impeller and a mixture of argon and chlorine stir up the aluminum liquid bath. Nowadays the modeling of such complex three-phase-reactors is possible by combining Population Balance with convective transport of the inclusions so as to calculate the time evolution of the size distribution of the inclusion population. An operator splitting technique is employed to solve the coupled Population Balance Equation and the transport equation. Results are provided for either pilot or industrial scales and allow us to compare the respective roles of mechanisms (flotation, entrapment on the liquid surface, gravity separation, agglomeration) on the particle size distribution and on the inclusion removal rate.