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Towards the development of a complete model

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Article · June 2011

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 Process modelling in BOF and AOD steelmaking Session 3 1

Towards the development of a complete model of the BOF converter

1 1,2 1 1 3 2 2
K. PERICLEOUS , Y. DOH , G. DJAMBAZOV , B. LEBON , P. GARDIN , P. CHAPELLE , A. JARDY , and S.
3
GAUTHIER
1
University of Greenwich, Old Royal Naval School, SE10 9LS London, UK
2
Institut Jean Lamour, UMR 7198, Ecole des Mines, Parc de Saurupt, 54042 Nancy Cedex, FRANCE
3
ArcelorMittal Research, Voie Romaine – BP 30320 – 57283 Maizières-Lès-Metz Cedex, FRANCE
Contact email: k.pericleous@gre.ac.uk

Abstract
A model of the BOF converter has been developed to understand and optimise the operation of industrial
ArcelorMittal units. The Eddy-Break-Up model of combustion is used to account for the effects of turbulence,
incorporated within the SCRS scheme of Spalding [1] and radiation is represented using a radiosity model. The
Counter-Diffusion-Method (CDM) [2] is used to predict the instantaneous steel bath surface deformation, caused by
the impact of a high speed oxygen jet and a scheme is proposed to estimate the droplet mass ejected from the
cavity to the gaseous phase by shear. The model is validated against experimental data and simulations by other
researchers.

KEY WORDS: post-combustion, steelmaking, Basic Oxygen Furnace (BOF), mathematical modelling.

simulate the deformation of the surface of a liquid

1 Introduction
The conversion of pig iron into low carbon steel takes
place in the steelmaking converter. As can be seen in
Figure 1, oxygen is blown at supersonic speed
through a vertical lance at the melt surface, creating
a cavity. The oxygen then penetrates the metal bath
and reacts with the carbon to produce CO gas, which
then returns to the top space, usually through a layer
of slag. The CO gas in turn reacts with the remaining
oxygen in the top space to produce CO2 and heat, in
the post-combustion reaction. The heat produced by
this reaction, maintains the bath at a temperature
above the liquidus of the steel. The high shear
generated by the oxygen jet also generates an
amount of droplets of liquid metal which are thrown
into the top space. Since these droplets are in an
oxygen rich environment and due to their small size
increase the effective reaction area, they need to be
accounted for in the model. The question to resolve
is, what proportion of the oxygen penetrates the bath
(either by diffusion, or through shear mixing) to
remove the carbon, and what proportion remains in
the top space to provide heat?
First, one needs to understand the interaction
between a high speed gas jet and a liquid free
surface. The literature reports many experimental
studies using cold models in which oxygen is
replaced by air and molten steel by water, dating
back to the sixties by Banks and Chandrasekhara [3]
or to the more recent experiments of Nordquist et al.
[4] . Results have been published regarding the
shape and dimensions of the cavity, with several
analytical expressions being proposed to estimate
the penetration depth of the jet. For a comprehensive
review on those studies, one can refer to the paper of
Nordquist et al. [4]. A few numerical models that
bath exposed to an impinging gas jet have also been
reported in the literature; the most commonly used
approach is to represent the bath free surface using
the Volume Of Fluid (VOF) method. Examples
include the models of Olivares et al. [5], Nguyen and
Evans [6], Odenthal et al. [7] and Ersson et al. [8].
In the cavity area, the oxygen reacts with the species
contained in the melt (including carbon) and as stated
above, droplets are ejected from its edge due to
shear. The literature reports range from the
investigations of droplet size distribution [9-11] to the
droplet generation rate [11] and its residence time
[12-13], through the factors affecting the splashing
and spitting [14]. For the mechanism of droplet
ejection and its behaviour after being ejected, the
books of Kolev [15] and Oesterlé [16] provide a
valuable reference.
All the oxides resulting from the reactions in the bath
participate in the creation of slag, except for carbon
monoxide which escapes from the bath as bubbles
providing the fuel for post-combustion. Several
models of post-combustion starting from Hirai et al.
[17] which assumes that the post-combustion occurs
only at the boundary edges of the supersonic jet to
the recent model proposed by Huber et al. [18] which
is an improvement of a model originally proposed by
Huin et al. [19-20]. Note also the work of Zhang and
Oeters [21-22] who developed an in-house code
taking into account the reactions, the heat transfer
and the Lagrangian droplet behaviour and Gou et al.
[23] who developed a 2-D turbulent (k-�) model of
the gaseous part of a converter with radiative
(Demarco-Lockwood radiation flux model [23]) and
convective heat transfer.

Düsseldorf, 27 June – 1 July 2011

 Process modelling in BOF and AOD steelmaking Session 3 2

φ Γφ Rφ
Continuity 1 0 0
∂P
Velocity ui µeff − + ρg i
∂x i

Free surface α 0 0
Kinetic
µt
turbulent k µ+ µ t G − ρε
σk
energy
Dissipation
rate of the
µt ε ε2
kinetic ε µ+ C1ε µ t G − C 2ε ρ
σε k k
turbulent
energy
Figure 1: Schematic of the Basic Oxygen Furnace Mass fraction
 m ε
of remaining mfu Γ − C EBU ρ min m fu , ox 
 s k
The aim of the present work is to fully model the fuel
hydrodynamic and chemical processes within the
BOF, ranging from the cavity creation by a gas jet to Mixture
f Γ 0
the post-combustion occurring in the gaseous phase fraction
via the generation of droplets at the cavity edge and
µ  
+ t a(R − E ) + div kh grad  1  
so get a realistic estimate of the carbon reaction k
Enthalpy h
within the bath. In this first stage, only the top space Cp σ T   Cp  
post combustion reaction is considered.
Radiosity R 4 a (E − R )
2 Computational model 3(a + s )
The simulations presented have been carried out
Table 1: Source and diffusion terms of the system of
using PHYSICA a multi-physics code developed at
1 equations
the University of Greenwich . Since the lance is
central to the converter, the geometry has been
Where, G is the production of turbulent kinetic energy
considered axisymmetric.
due to mean velocity gradients, � the molecular
dynamic viscosity and �t the turbulent dynamic
2.1 Governing equations
viscosity ( µ t = ρ C µ
k 2 ). � , � , C , C , C and
The transport equation of a conserved quantity φ may k � 1� 2� �

be expressed as: ε
CEBU are all taken to be constant and are given
respectively the values of 1.0, 1.3, 1.44, 1.92, 0.09
∂ρφ ∂  ∂φ  and 1.
+ ( ρ ui φ ) = ∂ Γφ  + Rφ Eq. 1 The term a(R-E) is used when the radiation model is
∂t ∂xi ∂xi  ∂xi  activated with E, the black body emissive power
4
E=σT . The absorption and the scattering coefficients
a and s, respectively, are given the values of 0.3 and
The different source and diffusion terms for the σ the Stefan-Boltzmann constant is equal to 5.67.10
-8
quantities used to resolve the post-combustion and -2 -4
W.m K .
the impingement of an air jet onto a water surface
can be seen in Table 1. The enthalpy is chosen as the conserved variable
when using the SCRS (Simple Chemical Reaction
Scheme [1]) model and it is related to the
temperature by Eq. 2.

(
h = CpT + m fu H react + 1 V 2
2
) Eq. 2

1
http://physica.co.uk/

Düsseldorf, 27 June – 1 July 2011

 Process modelling in BOF and AOD steelmaking Session 3 3

1 2
The term ( /2 V ) is important only if the flow regime is
compressible. The heat of the reaction Hreact = 10.1
2
MJ/kg and the chemical reaction is:
1kg CO + s kg O2 � (1+s) kg CO2
divisions in the radial direction and 207 divisions in
the axial direction. The nozzle region which would
have 12 divisions in the radial direction was not
included in the mesh, so the total number of cells was
Eq. 3 16524.

Where s is the stoichiometric ratio 2.2.2 Post-combustion of the steelmaking

converter
m oxidant 16 The post-combustion in the top space of the
s= = = 0.571 steelmaking converter model has been tested on a 6t
m fuel 28
pilot from ArcelorMittal Maizières. The geometry and
Or by dividing by 1+s, the mesh used are displayed in Figure 2. The mesh
has been refined at the jet outlet and near the bath
fst kg CO + (1-fst) kg O2 � 1 kg CO2 Eq. 4 surface.

Where fst is the stoichiometric mixture

fraction f = 1 = 0.636
st
1+ s
From the enthalpy, the temperature is derived
following Eq. 5.

T=
(
h − m fu H react − 1 V 2
2
) Eq. 5
Cp

The masses of the oxidant and the product are

derived from the mass of fuel and the mixture fraction
(Eq. 6 and Eq. 7).

 f − f st 
m ox = s m fu −  Eq. 6
 1 − f st 

m pr = 1 − mox − m fu Eq. 7
Figure 2: Geometry and Mesh of the 6t pilot (45x137
The density is computed from the ideal gas law:
pW with 1 m fu m ox m pr cells)
ρ= = + + .
RT W W fu Wox W pr Uniform values of the velocity and the turbulence
variables (k and �) were specified at the nozzle outlet.
2.2 Geometry and Boundary conditions The velocity was set to 526 m/s at the lance outlet
(Mach 1.59). The flowrate of the CO coming from the
2.2.1 Impact of a gas jet onto a liquid surface bath and of the oxygen going into the bath have been
2 2
set to 0.195 kg/s/m and 1.25 kg/s/m (57% of the
An example axisymmetric case of a hypothetical
total O2 blown from the lance) respectively. In the
cylindrical converter vessel with a diameter of 3.2 m
absence of other information, only the outer five
was modelled. The lance height was 1.2 m and the
sevenths of the bath area were used for the CO inlet
bath depth was also 1.2 m. The jet at the exit of the
into the domain.
lance nozzle was assumed to have uniform profiles of
o The turbulence variables at the nozzle exit for
velocity 1000 m/s and temperature 5 C. The liquid
o uniform profiles are calculated as follows:
metal bath temperature was fixed to 1600 C at the
3
vessel bottom. The diameter of the nozzle exit was k= ( I U 0 )2 Eq. 8
0.08 m and the turbulence intensity ratio at the nozzle 2
exit was assumed as 2%. The axisymmetric domain
was meshed with a rectangular grid containing 84 k 3/ 2
ε = C µ3 / 4 Eq. 9

2
where I is the turbulence intensity which is
http://webbook.nist.gov/cgi/cbook.cgi?Name=carbon+ determined from the following empirical correlation
I = 0.16 Re −1/ 8 [24] and  is a turbulent length scale
dioxide&Units=SI&cTG=on
taken as  = 0.07 Dn .

Düsseldorf, 27 June – 1 July 2011

 Process modelling in BOF and AOD steelmaking
The bath surface is assumed flat in this test, since
only a small depression is expected with the lance
being so distant from the bath.
3 Impact of a gas jet onto a liquid
surface
Numerical simulations of fluid flow with free surface
normally use a volumetric continuity equation (the
GALA, Gas And Liquid Algorithm in PHYSICA
nomenclature) for a stable calculation. This
effectively means that the two contacting fluids are
treated as incompressible (div u = 0). However, the
gas density does vary with temperature and it is
updated at the end of each time step, so the
momentum equations use the correct density in order
to predict the flow in the cavity. Initial simulations
were carried out with the Van Leer free-surface
capturing algorithm [25] which uses an explicit time-
stepping scheme. Then a time step of 0.1 ms was
used and short simulated times of up to 0.4 s were
achieved.
For longer runs the more efficient CDM algorithm [2]
is used. Thanks to the implicit time stepping scheme
it can be employed with time steps of 1 ms, so
simulated intervals of the order of 10 s are easily
achieved with overnight runs. The CDM is capable of
preserving the sharpness of the interface over a large
number of time steps and in the presence of lateral
flow. As the cavity depth and width oscillate, these
small movements are resolved within the simulation
with a sharp interface. After the simulation averaging
of the quantities of interest over a suitable interval is
performed, avoiding the initial transient. The
averaged interface zone is wider than the
instantaneous one and this allows monitoring points
to be defined inside it so that the quantity of material
ejected by the fast flow at the rim of the cavity can be
estimated.
Figure 3 presents a composite picture of time
averaged results (between 5s and 10s) where the
cavity shape is shown with a thick white line, the
density of the gas is shown with colour contours and
vectors represent mass flux which is the product of
local velocity and local density. The monitor
locations for ejected mass are shown as white
circles. The mass flux vectors show strong
entrainment of liquid metal into the free-surface
mixing layer which is related to the droplet generation
and additionally causes stirring of the metal bath.
To quantify the mass ejection the following
assumptions are made: (1) All the metal passing the
boundary defined by the string of monitoring points
will be ejected in the form of droplets; (2) Each
monitoring point is the centre of a computational cell
where the volume fraction of metal becomes less
Düsseldorf, 27 June – 1 July 2011
Session 3 4
than a chosen threshold when a vertical column of
cells is examined from the bottom up; (3) The volume
of the metal ejected from each vertical column is the
product of the local (at the monitoring point) vertical
velocity times the local metal volume fraction times
the cross-section area of the cell column. Then the
total ejected volume will be the sum of the volumes
ejected by the individual columns of cells in the
computational mesh. The threshold value can be
used as a tuning parameter for this part of the model.
There are other parameters of the simulation which
were also found to influence the predicted ejection
rate. These include the metal-gas surface tension
and a ‘fringe-sweep’ limit value which is a parameter
of the particular implementation of the CDM algorithm
used in these simulations. Figure 4 shows the
o
cumulative ejection along the radius in the 6 sector
of the cylindrical mesh for a ‘base case’ (with a
‘fringe’ parameter equal to 1% and surface tension 1
N/m) and three more cases where the above
parameters are varied as shown in the figure. It can
be seen that the predicted ejection rate is sensitive to
the values of the investigated parameters and
validation is planned for their tuning.
Density 1.0 t/m^2/s
z, m
-1.1
rho
-1.2
1.0
-1.3
-1.4
-1.5
0.5
-1.6
-1.7
0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 r, m
Figure 3: Time-averaged free surface line, gas
density contours and mass flux vectors
 Process modelling in BOF and AOD steelmaking Session 3 5

Ejected Volume in 6 deg Sector

0.0012
0.001
0.0008
0.0006
m^3/s

0.0004
0.0002 Base Case (1; 1%)
Surf. tension 1.8
0 Fringe ’sweep’ 0.5%
Fringe ’sweep’ 2%
-0.0002
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 Figure 6: Centreline velocity of the 6t pilot oxygen jet
r, m The computed temperatures depicted in Figure 7
Figure 4: Influence of some parameters on the remain lower than 3000 K. In the bulk of the domain,
the temperatures are around 1850 K, at the jet
calculated mass ejection from the cavity rim entrance, it remains at the set value of 300K and a
hot region appears near the entrainment region close
4 Numerical results of the post- to the jet. There is also a hot spot at the vessel wall
combustion model of the steelmaking close to the bath surface.
converter
The velocity profiles and the streamlines for this case
are displayed in Figure 5. We can see that the flow
decays rapidly away from the lance outlet (Figure 6),
it hits the bath surface and then it follows the bath
surface and the converter wall until it leaves the
domain through the outlet. A single recirculation zone
is observed close to the bath, and the streamlines
show strong entrainment of the gas from the bulk of
the converter into the jet.

Figure 7: Temperature profile of the 6t pilot

With the chosen boundary conditions, the fuel (CO)
leaving the bath is not entirely burned in the domain
as we can see in Figure 8a with a small fuel rich
region observed at the corner. As expected the
oxidant (O2) has a highest value in the jet and the
product (CO2) increases in concentration towards the
exit with highest values close to the vessel outlet.
One explanation for the position of the flame front
(black line in Figure 8) at the jet boundary and near to
the bath surface may be due to the fact that the bath
surface is swept by the flow of oxidant coming from
Figure 5: Velocity profile of the 6t pilot
the jet at a high velocity and the reaction takes place
then when the CO in entrained inside the
surroundings of the jet. This explanation matches
with the model proposed by Hirai et al. [17].

Düsseldorf, 27 June – 1 July 2011

 Process modelling in BOF and AOD steelmaking
Figure 8: Species distribution of the 6t pilot: (a) CO,
(b) O2, (c) CO2
The post-combustion ratio, defines as the amount of
CO2 on the amount of CO2 and CO at the converter
outlet, is numerically found to be 63.3%. This is in
good agreement with the experimental data for this
configuration which give us a value of 76%.
5 Conclusions
The essential elements of a comprehensive BOF
model have been developed. At present, the post
combustion reaction and the interaction of the oxygen
jet with the bath have been presented, with user-
defined boundary conditions prescribed for the
proportion of O2 entering the bath and conversely the
amount of CO returning from the bath to the top
space. The Eddy-Break-up version of the SCRS
single-step reaction model has been used for post-
combustion and the predicted PCR is close to the
experimental value. The impact of a gas jet onto the
bath surface leaves a deep crater and also generates
very high shear at the rim of this crater which is
expected to eject bath droplets into an oxygen-rich
gas stream. The free surface behaviour is modelled
using a novel implementation of the CDM algorithm,
and the coupling of the top space and bath enables
the simultaneous prediction of the velocity field within
the bath, responsible for the distribution of the
decarburising oxygen. The actual prediction of the
Düsseldorf, 27 June – 1 July 2011
Session 3 6
bath reactions and the role of ejected material are
planned for the next stage in model development. It is
hoped then, to get a better description of the CO
source distribution which is at present prescribed.
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