An integrated phenomenological process model for prediction of oxygen pickup during open air tapping and pouring of liquid steel

Abstract

Re-oxidation inclusion formation being a major concern in open air induction melting and casting facilities has acquired significant attention worldwide. Mathematical modeling has been attempted to understand the contributions from the two major sources of oxygen pickup viz. diffusion of oxygen through gaseous boundary layer and air entrainment in the past. In this work, an integrated approach has been developed to estimate the total oxygen pickup content from the aforementioned sources. The developed model consists of a fairly comprehensive and plausible formulation by incorporating refinements like time dependent velocity modification and application of modified Ranz-Marshall correlation which has not yet been addressed. The consolidated model predictions are in good agreement with the data obtained from literature. For further validation, a customized experimental setup was designed and oxygen pickup studies were performed upon it. The model predictions of oxygen and nitrogen pick up pertaining to the designed experiments have been found to be in concurrence with the measured total oxygen and nitrogen contents respectively.