Ladle Metallurgy Steelmaking: The Role of Physical and Mathematical Modeling

Abstract

The author and his associates have been actively involved, for over three decades, investigating diverse aspects of ladle metallurgy steelmaking operations. In this work, an overview of our research summarizing some key contributions in the area of ladle hydrodynamics, slag–metal interactions, alloy melting and dissolution, mixing and mass transport and re-oxidation phenomena is discussed. A vast majority of the results presented were derived through physical and mathematical modeling in which, ladles fitted with single (both axi-symmetrical and symmetrical) as well as dualporous plugs were considered both with and without an overlying slag phase. In addition to such,, optimization studies were also carried out to quantify “argon rinsing flow rate regime”, necessary to restrict melt re-oxidation, particularly during the final stages of ladle refining. It is demonstrated that sufficiently vast and reliable knowledge base has evolved from our research and could be used towards effective engineering of argon stirred ladle systems.