Flow and penetration behavior of submerged side-blown gas

Abstract

To assess the widely used submerged side-blowing in pyrometallurgy, a high-speed camera-digital image processing-statistical approach was used to systematically investigate the effects of the gas flow rate, nozzle diameter, and inclination angle on the space-time distribution and penetration behavior of submerged side-blown gas in an air-water system. The results show that the gas motion gradually changes from a bubbling regime to a steady jetting regime and the formation of a complete jet structure as the flow rate increases. When the flow rate is low, a bubble area is formed by large bubbles in the area above the nozzle. When the flow rate and the nozzle diameter are significant, a bubble area is formed by tiny bubbles in the area above the nozzle. The increased inclination angle requires a more significant flow rate to form a complete jet structure. In the sampling time, the dimensionless horizontal and vertical penetration depths are Gaussian distributed. Decreasing the nozzle diameter and increasing the flow rate or inclination angle will increase the distribution range and discreteness. New correlations for a penetration depth with an error of ±20% were obtained through dimensional analysis. The dimensionless horizontal penetration depth of an argon-melt system in a 120 t converter calculated by the correlation proposed by the current study is close to the result calculated by a correlation in the literature and a numerical simulation result in the literature.

Keywords

submerged side-blowing / jet / high-speed camera / image processing / dimensional analysis

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