Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics - Application
Multi-material heat transfer and fluid flow in an
electric arc furnace
One example of an electric arc furnace consists of a cast silica
refactory containing a cast iron bath, with a carbon electrode protruding
from the top of the furnace. The space above the bath is filled with a
nitrogen atmosphere. An electric current is passed through the electrode
into the cast iron bath, generating an arc in the air gap between them.
Schematic diagram of the electric arc furnace
The dynamics of the electric arc furnace is very complex, comprised of
heat conduction in the electrode, bath and refractory, as well as fluid
motion and heat generation and convection in the molten bath and
atmosphere. The numerical simulation of an electric arc furnace is further
complicated by the presence of two vastly different time scales, with the
convective time scale being much faster than the conductive time scale for
the refractory.
Preliminary numerical simulations, using the SPH method, have been
undertaken for a two-dimensional model of the electric arc furnace. Two
different models for the cast iron bath were considered: the first
assuming a solid bath, and the second with a liquid bath. The diagrams
below show examples of the temperature in the different regions calculated
using these two models at selected times.
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| Temperature in the different
domains of the electric arc furnace (left: solid bath; right:
liquid bath) |
These simulations illustrate that the SPH method is able to treat in a
natural way combined heat and mass flow in connected multi-domain regions.
The free surface between the cast iron bath and nitrogen atmosphere has be
calculated; while in the present example, the motion of the free surface
is rather simple, more complex features - such as sloshing and splashing
due to the introduction of gas flows or electromagnetic stirring - could
also be captured by the SPH simulations.
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