Research on the Molten Bath of EBT Area with Bottom-Blowing in EAF Steelmaking Process

Bottom-blowing, as widely adopted in electric arc furnace (EAF) steelmaking technology, stir the molten bath by blowing inert gas (Ar, N2) from the bottom of EAF to promote fluid flow and uneven metallurgical reaction in the molten bath. However, for eccentric structure design of electric arc furnace, the problem still exists in EBT(Eccentric Bottom Tapping)area. In this study, by the analysis of previous research of molten bath at different bottom-blowing gas flow rates, it is found that the dead zone mainly appears in the region of the EBT area. So the ways that increase bottom-blowing flow in the EBT area to reduce the dead zone area have been proposed. A computational fluid dynamics model was established to investigate the effects of bottom-blowing gas flow rate in EBT area on the fluid flow characteristics in the EAF molten bath. Increasing bottom-blowing flow in the EBT area can more effectively improve molten steel flow and reduce the dead zone area. Based on industrial application research, the dynamic conditions of steelmaking process is improved with bottom-blowing by increasing flow in EBT area, the lime consumption, steel consumption and tap-to-tap time are reduced, the contents of FeO and endpoint carbon-oxygen equilibrium is reduced, and the yield of Si, Mn and Al is increased before the refining process.