Study of Open Eye Formation in an Argon Stirred Ladle

Abstract

Two cold models were employed to simulate the formation of open-eyes in a gas stirred ladle. In the first model, water and silicon oils were employed to simulate liquid steel and slag respectively. In the second one, liquid Ga-In-Sn alloy was used to simulate liquid steel, while 12% hydrochloric acid simulated the top slag. The experimental results indicated that the gas flow rate, height of the lower liquid and height of the top liquid had a strong impact on the open-eye size. On the other hand, the viscosity of the top liquid and the interfacial tension between the two liquids had only little effect on the open-eye size. A semi-empirical model was developed to describe the size of open-eye as a function of the heights of the two liquids and the gas flow rate. The two sets of parameters obtained for the water and Ga-In-Sn models were very different. Industrial trials were also conducted to examine the applicability of the models. The model developed based on the Ga-In-Sn model could well predict the formation of an open-eye during ladle treatment. The model could be adopted by the industry to estimate the real gas flow rate by measuring the size of the open-eye online. On the other hand, the mathematical model based on water model experiments was unsatisfactory when applied to the industrial ladle process.

Modeling of Gas-Steel-Slag Three-Phase Flow in Ladle Metallurgy: Part I. Physical Modeling

“…In addition, many research works for slag eye formation have been carried out by other workers. 14,15) However, relatively little work has been reported on slag eye formation in ladle metallurgy with eccentric and multi-plugs gas bubbling.…”

Formation of Slag ‘eye’ in an Inert Gas Shrouded Tundish

“…The % error was calculated according to the following formula: It is seen from Table 1 that the percentage errors in the estimated slag 'eye' radius range from 75.27% to 99.33% which are huge. The percentage errors in the radius obtained from other researchers 7,9,11,12) which had different operating slag height to bath height ratios were even larger and hence, are not shown here. This clearly proves the fact that the correlations developed to predict the open 'eye' area in laldes can not be used for tundishes.…”

“…On comparing the present water model results with the estimates obtained from the correlations for ladles, 2,3,7,9,11,12,15) it can be concluded that the mechanism of slag 'eye' formation in a tundish is different from that in ladles, and hence, a new correlation needs to be developed for predicting the size of slag 'eye' in a tundish.…”

“…Therefore, when the downward flow velocity would be larger, the more emulsification of slag could be expected. Wu et al 11) carried out water modeling and cold metal model experiments to estimate the size of the slag 'eye' and found out that viscosity and interfacial tensions between the two liquids have no or minor effect on the open 'eye' size. They used mass balances and other equations to obtain relations for the open 'eye' sizes which agreed well with the experimental results.…”

Numerical Study on Flow, Temperature, and Concentration Distribution Features of Combined Gas and Bottom-Electromagnetic Stirring in a Ladle

“…Strong turbulent flow in the ladle beneficially enhances the chemical reaction rate, homogenizes the chemical composition, removes non-metallic inclusions, and eliminates temperature stratification. In addition, enhancing turbulence at the slag/steel interface is required to achieve a desirable desulphurization result [1]. Argon gas stirring (AGS) and electromagnetic stirring (EMS) are the two dominant methods in the ladle refining process [2][3][4][5][6].…”