Research On The Technology Of Preparation Process Automation Equipment For Rare Metals And Alloys

Electrolysis is currently the most popular process method for the preparation of rare earth metals and alloys.It is restricted by the long-term small-batch,mufti-variety production model.Most of the active equipment is manually operated by a single machine,and the grade is below 10KA.Due to the growing market demand for rare earth products,it is urgent to develop automation and large-scale similar equipment;with the help of computer joint simulation technology,it can effectively shorten the development cycle of new equipment and reduce the trial production cost.According to the enterprise standard,the development of the 12KA large-scale cylindrical electrolytic cell system of rare earth praseodymium series products is studied,and relevant theories and practical technologies in multiple fields are developed,and new automatic equipment design schemes are formulated.According to the initial design structural parameters of the 12KA cylindrical electrolytic cell system,a three-dimensional model is established in the Pro/E environment,and the data is imported into the finite element ANSYS workbench analysis software.The process environment,raw materials,media,and anodize and positive electrodes are considered,and the workbench function module is used Finite element meshing to assess its quality.A mathematical model of temperature field,current field,and current-temperature coupling field was established in the ANSYS workbench flow field environment and its validity was verified.The boundary conditions were determined based on the actual state of the electrolytic reduction process of ordinary neodymium alloy,and a joint simulation test of the electrolytic reduction process was performed.Through data processing,the key parameters such as the average temperature,current density,peak value,and change rate in the electrolytic bath's molten pool were determined;and the correlation between the molten pool temperature and the current density was analyzed using the results of the current-temperature coupled field simulation experiment.Based on the comprehensive simulation test results,the structure optimization of the 12KA circular electrolytic cell system was completed;the technical and economical performance of the equipment was comprehensively analyzed,and the temperature control strategy was formulated to meet the needs of automatic control.Design a finished product automatic discharge device based on the siphon principle to further improve the automation and energy-saving level of the production line.The test shows that the 12k A cylindrical electrolytic cell system with automatic discharging function has an average production capacity of samarium-neodymium alloy of about 15.4kg/h;average temperature control accuracy of 1050±1%;average current densities on the cathode and anode surfaces are 15.50A/cm~2,5.56A/cm~2,meet the enterprise standards,the equipment is expected to consume less than8500 k Wh/ton.