EUROPEAN CONGRESS AND EXHIBITION ON ADVANCED MATERIALS AND PROCESSES - EUROMAT 2021

In practice, the frequently used technique for removing dissolved hydrogen and solid impurities from aluminium melt is blowing of inert gas. The process of aluminium refining by blowing inert gas can be performed in ladle reactors. The efficiency of refining process can be influenced by relevant boundary parameters of the degassing process. The presented paper deals with the use of numerical and physical modelling of the degassing process of aluminium melt in ladle by blowing inert gas through a rotating impeller. The main aim of modelling was to achieve insight into the effect of relevant parameters, such as rotary impeller speeds/ flow rate of inert gas / impeller variant and distance of the impeller from the bottom of the refining ladle, on the removal of dissolved gas during refining. The numerical modelling was done in CFD programme ANSYS Fluent. For the purposes of physical modelling, a plexiglass model in a scale of 1:1 is used for the operating ladle. Based on the results obtained from modelling, the main findings and recommendation for optimal conditions of refining process were formulated.