Mathematical modeling of the argon oxygen decarburization converter exhaust gas system at the reduction stage

For metallurgical processes, many problems relate to the combination of very large computing domain, chemical reaction, and radiation, high turbulent and multiphase flow, which causes difficulties in the implementation of mathematical modeling. This paper describes the CFD simulation of the complex turbulent exhaust gas flow in an argon oxygen decarburization (AOD) converter in the metallurgical industry combining with species transfer, combustion, and radiation. Some details are explained in order to obtain a fast and good convergence to solve this sort of high non-linear problem. The influence on the simulation result of selecting different species as the last species in the species transfer model is discussed in this paper. The influence of argon blowing rate from bottom tuyeres on the gas flow pattern in the system is also investigated. Although it is very difficult to fully verify the simulated results in the industry at this moment, some of measured data in the factory agree well with the calculation.