Simulation And Optimization On The Iron-Carbon Contact Voltage Drop Of Anode In Aluminum Reduction Cell

With the development of economy, there is a increasing demand for aluminum production, thus the aluminum industry is developing rapidly. The aluminum industry is a main energy consumer, as the energy crisis, is becoming increasingly serious, it is extremely necessary to conduct research on its energy-saving. To reduce the high contact voltage drop of anode in the aluminum reduction cell, in this paper, the finite element software-ANYSY was used to build thermal, stress, electric field coupled model in aluminum reduction cell anode, and the numerical simulation was conducted for the aluminum anode iron-carbon contact voltage drop. The influences of the expansion of phosphorous pig iron on the contact voltage drop was studied, and the matching attribute of the anode carbon blocks of different qualities and the expansion of phosphorus pig iron were determined. Additionally the model was used to simulate how various the carbon bowl size and shape affect the anode contact resistance. The main results are as follows:1) The finite element software ANSYS was used to build the coupled thermal, stress, electric field model of the aluminum reduction cell anode with contact resistance. Its correctness was verified.2) The various factors which affect the contact resistance were discussed, indicating that the main influence factor of anode iron-carbon contact resistance is the contact pressure. Based on the contact pressure dominated formula of the contact resistance, the coefficient Kc of iron-carbon contact resistance was determined with the combination of simulating and field test. In this way the anode iron-carbon contact resistance could be calculated.(3) The simulation method was used to determine the best expansion coefficient of phosphorus pig iron of a operating smelter, the results show that:on the premise of safety in production, an adjustment of the expansion coefficient of phosphorus pig iron, could decrease the contact voltage drop of the anode to up to 20.4 mV.(4)By adjusting the coefficient of expansion of phosphorus pig iron, the stress of the anode carbon block and the anode voltage drop with different Kc can be obtained, and the curve was fitted between expansion coefficient and the anode voltage drop. Different qualities of anode carbon block in aluminum could be matched with different expansion coefficients of phosphorus pig iron, in order to reduce the iron-carbon contact resistance to the highest extent.(5) The impact of the carbon bowl size on the contact voltage drop was studied numerically, the thermal, stress, electric fields of carbon bowl with increased diameter and depth were compared with the conventional anode, the contribution of the different rehabilitate methods to reduce the anode contact drop were analyzed.(6) The anode upper-surface-slotting technology was numerically studied and compared with the conventional anode. Its'effect on the contact resistance was determined. The possible problems of the technology in practice were analyzed...