Analysis of the Decarburization of the Steel Process Inside an AOD Converter Using Seven-Nozzle Geometrical Disposal over Lateral Conic Walls

Steel is the most used metallic material in the world and the demand for new improved high-quality steel products due to modern performance requirements has been increased. Steel is produced in small and big bulks in accordance with the necessities inside the secondary refining process such as Electric Arc Furnaces (EAF), Basic Oxygen Furnaces and AOD converters where pig-iron or scrap steel are mixed and recycled. Here steel is foundry, and additional elements like carbon and other ferrous-alloys or metals are added to obtain the chemical composition required; then, oxidation and reduction eliminate some undesirable inclusions. Moreover, these lances also blow gases towards the AOD converter to generate twirlings that move the melting steel inside. Therefore, it is so important to understand hydrodynamic behavior to improve industrial practices. In this work, different fine meshes were solved to guarantee the good concordance and fidelity of the results regarding the fluid flow dynamic in the melting bath inside an AOD converter under the influence of a blowing system. The results refer to the finest mesh which had the best fit and lower fluctuations. Then, this work focuses on the simulation of a configuration of seven nozzles disposed beside the first conic inverted wall, which are used to blow a mix of argon and oxygen to promote the movement of the melting steel inside and drag those undesirable materials up towards the slag. Initially in this work an approaching analysis was done by comparing the penetration of the gas blown to the melting bath. After verification a hydrodynamical analysis is done by comparing vertical and horizontal cut views of velocity fields and streamlines, contributing to the understanding of hydrodynamic behavior. Furthermore, a kinetic energy analysis was also done to support the profiting and dissipation of the energy inside the fluid.