Simulation And Development Design Of Electric Field And Flow Field In Wan'an Grade Rare Earth Electrolysis Cell

With the development of the rare earth industry, the traditional rare earth electrolytic cell can’t meet the need of the mass industrial production, so the high-power rare earth electrolytic cell is more and more urgent. Based on this background, the 15 KA rare earth electrolytic cell is developed and designed through the commercial simulation software to explore new rare earth electrolytic cell.Combined with the practical experience and based on some research data of other researchers, this paper preliminary designs the electrolytic cell parameters, including the square structure and the anode part size.There are complicated physical fields in rare earth electrolytic cell, including electric field, magnetic field and flow field, but the electric field is the root of the other physical fields.The mathematical model of electric field is established to the simulate the electric field of the different distance from the bottom and the different distance between cathode and anode,using the finite element software ANSYS.Through the simulation of the electric field, the electric field in general can be divided into the cathode section, anode section and the metal receiver section. The section where the current focus on between the anode and cathode potential has the most densely populated equipotential line, the largest potential ladder and electric field intensity. The smaller electrode insertion depth, the slot voltage will be more and more high and the electrolytic current efficiency will be lower. The distance from the bottom of the electrolytic cell and the distance between the cathode and anode with the reasonable electric field distribution and the ideal melt voltage can be got.On the basis of the electric field simulation, building the mathematical model, the simulation of the electrolyte flow field in rare earth electrolytic cell, the gas flow field and simulated analysis of the sedimentation process of rare earth metals is done with the FLUNTE.The electrolytic process of rare earth electrolytic cell, namely the precipitation process of electrolytic produce gas, the sedimentation process of the melt, the electrolyte main flow region, the formation process of the distribution of flow velocity and vortex, and the impact of gas flow field to the electrolyte flow field will be found. This provides a reference for the waste gas collection and metalremoval, also can further verify the correctness of the electric field simulation to determine the cell parameters.Finally, the rare earth electrolytic cell is designed and the paper introduces the machining process of electrolytic cell and lists the problems in the manufacturing process of electrolytic cell. After the field test, it achieves good result for the reasonable power consumption and the better product recovery rate.But it still exists many problems in the process of production and this paper analyzes the problems of nodules.