Supersonic oxygen jets are used in steelmaking and other different metal refining processes, and therefore, the behavior of supersonic jets inside a high temperature field is important for understanding these processes. In this study, a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model was developed to investigate the effect of a high ambient temperature field on supersonic oxygen jet behavior. The results were compared with available experimental data by Sumi et al. and with a jet model proposed by Ito and Muchi. At high ambient temperatures, the density of the ambient fluid is low. Therefore, the mass addition to the jet from the surrounding medium is low, which reduces the growth rate of the turbulent mixing region. As a result, the velocity decreases more slowly, and the potential core length of the jet increases at high ambient temperatures. But CFD simulation of the supersonic jet using the kÀe turbulence model, including compressibility terms, was found to underpredict the potential flow core length at higher ambient temperatures. A modified k-e turbulence model is presented that modifies the turbulent viscosity in order to reduce the growth rate of turbulent mixing at high ambient temperatures. The results obtained by using the modified turbulence model were found to be in good agreement with the experimental data. The CFD simulation showed that the potential flow core length at steelmaking temperatures (1800 K) is 2.5 times as long as that at room temperature. The simulation results then were used to investigate the effect of ambient temperature on the droplet generation rate using a dimensionless blowing number.

No abstract

Supersonic coherent gas jets are now used widely in electric arc furnace steelmaking and many other industrial applications to increase the gas-liquid mixing, reaction rates, and energy efficiency of the process. However, there has been limited research on the basic physics of supersonic coherent jets. In the present study, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation of the supersonic jet with and without a shrouding flame at room ambient temperature was carried out and validated against experimental data. The numerical results show that the potential core length of the supersonic oxygen and nitrogen jet with shrouding flame is more than four times and three times longer, respectively, than that without flame shrouding, which is in good agreement with the experimental data. The spreading rate of the supersonic jet decreased dramatically with the use of the shrouding flame compared with a conventional supersonic jet. The present CFD model was used to investigate the characteristics of the supersonic coherent oxygen jet at steelmaking conditions of around 1700 K (1427°C). The potential core length of the supersonic coherent oxygen jet at steelmaking conditions was 1.4 times longer than that at room ambient temperature.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model was developed to simulate the liquid flow field and surface deformation caused by an impinging shrouded supersonic jet on a liquid bath from the top as used in oxygen steelmaking. Two different computational domains were used to avoid the difficulties that arise from the simultaneous solution of compressible gas phase and incompressible liquid phase. The results were validated against the experimental data and the reasons for any deviation were described accordingly. The effect of shrouding gas flow rates on the axial jet velocity distribution, depth of penetration and velocity distribution of liquid phase were investigated. A high shrouding gas flow rate was found to increase the depth of penetration and liquid free surface velocity which in turn contributes in reducing the mixing time. The mechanism of droplets generation was investigated in detail. The CFD model successfully predicted the formation of surface waves inside the cavity and consequent liquid fingers from the edge of the cavity which were experimentally observed by the previous researchers.1,2) It was shown that the Blowing number theory (NB) fails to predict the droplet generation rate if the cavity operates in the deep penetrating mode. The possible reasons behind this limitation have been discussed using the Blowing number equation and CFD results. Finally, the cavity surface area was found to be the most influencing factor in the generation of droplets.

With the aim of developing a comprehensive decision support tool for the performance analysis and design of rainwater tanks, a simple spreadsheet based daily water balance model was developed using daily rainfall data, contributing roof area, rainfall loss factor, available storage volume, tank overflow and rainwater demand. In order to assess reliability of domestic rainwater tanks in augmenting partial household water demand in Melbourne (Australia) area, the developed water balance model was used for three different climatic conditions (i.e. dry, average, and wet years). Historical daily rainfall data was collected from a rainfall station near Melbourne city central. From historical rainfall data three representative years (driest, average and wettest) were selected for the current analysis. Reliability is defined as percentage of days in a year when rainwater tank was able to supply the intended partial demand for a particular condition. For the three climatic conditions, several reliability charts are presented for domestic rainwater tanks in relations to tank volume, roof area, number of people in a house (i.e. water demand) and percentage of total water demand to be satisfied by harvested rainwater. In brief, for a two-people household scenario, ∼100% reliability can be achieved with a roof size of 150-300 m2 having a tank size of 5000-10,000 L. However, for a four-people household scenario, it is not possible to achieve a 100% reliability, even with a roof size of 300 m2 and a tank size of 10,000 L.