A Study On The Simulation For The Fluid Flow In RH Refining Process Under Different Parameters Of Immersion Tubes

The CFD software—FLUENT was used to simulate the fluid flow in homogeneous water model in order to study the circulating flow rate with different parameters of immersion tubes, such as the diameter, the immersion depth, the immersion location, the distance between the tubes and so on. The parameters of the immersion tubes play a important part in the fluid flow and the refining effect in the process of the RH vacuum refining, so the study is full of practical and academic value. At the same time, compare to the traditional simulations, like the homogeneous water model, the CFD software is advanced with less time, less money and more efficiently.The study mainly include:creating and meshing the three-dimensional model of the vacuum refining equipment with the software—GAMBIT; then with the theory of the numerical simulation and homogeneous water model, specifying the boundary type and then to simulate with the software—FLUENT; at last, comparing and discussing the results of the simulation with that of homogenous water model.The results of simulation showed that there must be the most optimizing diameter of the immersion tubes in which will increase the circulating flow rate and the refining efficient. While the immersion tubes are located eccentrically, larger eddies appear near the down-leg immersion tube at the bottom of vacuum chamber, under free surface of vacuum chamber and in ladle, but no obvious effect on the circulation flow rate was observed. While the distance between two tubes is decreased, the circulation flow rate decreases, and the recirculation near the left wall of the vacuum chamber is enhanced. The circulation flow rate increases while the depth of immersion tubes in ladle is reduced. In order to increase the circulation flow rate, either reducing the immersion depth of immersion tubes or increasing the distance between immersion tubes should be adopted and to be avoided slag entrapment into the immersion tubes.With the results of the simulation, we fund the importance effects of the parameters of immersion tubes to the RH refine process, which will be used in the practical production and make it possible to improve the efficiency of the RH vacuum refining. However, we should realize that because of the study is only focus on the simulation of the separate equipment, we can't observe the fluid flow in the whole equipment; and with the limit of time, the study is only about two immersion tubes, the follow study can do some numerical research about multi-tubes.