Impact characteristics of submerged gas–solid injection in the manufacturing process of steel

Scrap is used as a basic raw material in an electric arc furnace (EAF) steelmaking process. During the process of melting, the phosphorus content fluctuates greatly, which is affected by various parameters such as the furnace structure and poor reaction dynamic conditions. Moreover, dephosphorization is very difficult to achieve. It is known that the carbon content of all melting scraps is low, C–O reaction in the molten pool is not sufficient, and number of bubbles is small; the FeO content in slag is high and molten steel is very easily oxidized by blowing oxygen and effective stirring. This study proposed a new process of submerged gas–solid injection and implemented it in EAF steelmaking, which effectively solved the aforementioned problems by delivering lime powder or carbon powder directly into the molten pool. In this study, the impact characteristics of submerged gas–solid injection in molten bath were investigated using numerical simulations and water model experiments. It is observed that when the gas flow rate was increased, the horizontal and vertical penetration distances were also increased. Meanwhile, when the installed angle of the nozzle was increased, the horizontal penetration distance was also increased, whereas, there was a decrease in vertical penetration distance. Further, the results obtained also show that both the kinetic energy of gas jet and impact penetration depth are increased by the proposed powder injection process.