Articles techniques et présentations

In the steelmaking processes, the stirring of the metal bath by argon (or nitrogen) injection is a widely used method to achieve chemical or thermal homogeneity. Computational fluid dynamics can be used as a very powerful tool to gain an insight into the mass transfer and heat transfer in liquid steel. In this paper, the flow behaviors in two different steelmaking reactors were simulated using COMSOL Multiphysics. The first model was used to calculate the Argon-stir induced flow in the metal bath inside a 300 ton converter. In the second model, the effect of gas stirring on the mixing time in a 100 ton ladle for chemical homogenization was investigated. In both cases, the effect of argon gas flow rate on flow in the reactors was investigated.