Liquid Mixing Characteristics in Top-Blown Process

The planar laser induced fluorescence (PLIF) technique is applied to investigate the flow and liquid mixing characteristics in submerged top-blow process. The liquid mixing effects are analyzed in terms of plane mixing uniformity U(t) and mixing time t95 at different air flow rate and lance submergence depth. Based on experimental data, the liquid mixing process has been divided into three stages by mixing uniformity U, the beginning stage (0.9 < U < 1) , the interim stage (0.1 < U < 0.9) and the end stage (0 < U < 0.1), the value of U drops slowly in the beginning stage and the end stage, but drops rapidly in the interim stage. The mixing time t95 is decreased obviously when increasing the air flow rate and lance submergence depth. There are significant local mixing differences in the liquid mixing process when the lance submergence depth is small. The local difference decreases evidently as the air flow rate and the lance submergence depth increase. The local differences are gradually eliminated when the lance approaches the container bottom.