Understanding the Mechanisms of Bubble Formation in Bottom-Blowing Processes Using Physical and Mathematical Modeling in a Thin Rectangular Channel

摘要

Bottom stirring is widely applied in metallurgical vessels such as in basic oxygen furnaces, ladles, etc., to control or modify the liquid metal flow field, improve alloy mixing process, or refine the non-metallic inclusions etc. The different mechanisms of bubble formation and bubble motion during the bottom-blowing method were reported in this paper by physical modeling (water model and low-melting-point alloy model) and mathematical modeling in a thin rectangular channel. The effects of wall surface wettability, pore size in porous plugs and gas inlet velocity were considered. The correlation of bubble size with different operating parameters were predicted and validated.