Melting rates of furnace or ladle additions in steelmaking

AbstractA heat transfer model was developed to obtain melting times of various sized iron spheres immersed in stagnant steel baths. The effects of superheat, preheat and thermal properties were studied. It is shown that laminar natural convection currents set up during the melting process play an important role in determining melting times and that these times are generally short (∼ 100 sec.) even at large addition sizes (∼ 5 inches dia.). A few experimental results were obtained and found to be in substantial agreement with predicted melting rates.Finally, since there is often a definite economic incentive to use larger sized additions, adaptation of current steelmaking practices is recommended, to make use of them where available. Resume Un modele de transfert de chaleur a ete developpe pour determiner le temps de fusion de spheres de fer de differents diametres dans des bains d'acier stagnant. Les effets de surchauffage, de prechauffage et les proprietes thermiques ont ete etudies. Les courants naturel...