Study of efficiency of liquid steel homogenization with blowing through blocks of various designs

At modern metallurgical plants, blowing of steel with process gases is an obligatory component of the production cycle. In this case, it is most difficult to organize the supply of stirring gas through the bottom of a metallurgical unit. In the practice of metallurgical production, blowing units of various designs (slotted, channel and with non-directional porosity) are used to inject process gases under such a scheme. Considering that the influence of the design of the bubbler of the bottom blowing unit on the efficiency of mass transfer in a metal bath has not been studied, the aim of this study was to determine the influence of the design of the blowing unit on the efficiency of homogenization of the metal melt. To achieve this goal, the method of physical water modelling was used, based on a modified π-theorem. In order to obtain adequate results, similarity numbers (homochromicity number, dimensionless volume flow number, linear simplex and density simplex) were defined to describe the process of fluid homogenization, and an experimental installation was built that allows video recording of experiments with high image quality. According to the simulation results, photographs were obtained illustrating the dynamics of changes in the level of liquid homogenization over time (assessed by the indicator redistribution rate in the bath volume) for blowing units of various designs and different gas flow rates. The scientific novelty of the conducted research is the determination of similarity criteria describing the process of homogenization of a metal melt when blowing with an inert gas. The practical significance lies in the proposed innovative design of the blowing unit, for which rational design parameters and necessary and sufficient for rapid homogenization parameters of the blowing were defined.