Numerical simulations on copper droplet collisions in an electromagnetic slag cleaning process

The copper slag cleaning process contains complex physico-chemical phenomena, among which the collisions between liquid metal droplets possess an enormous influence on the cleaning efficiency. An Euler-Lagrange approach is employed to numerically study the slag-copper droplet system with the CFD code FLUENT. For the dispersed phase a new hybrid collision algorithm was implemented to overcome the mesh-dependency problem of the pure stochastic algorithm. It provides better prediction of the collision probability among the in-homogeneously distributed droplets and liberates the Discrete Phase Model calculation from using the mesh of the continuous phase. Due to the high viscosity and density of both phases, the slag-droplet collision system is distinctly different from conventional collision systems, such as liquid droplets in air or gas bubbles in liquids. Therefore a new regime map for droplets in a viscous shear flow with low velocities is proposed on the basis of literature data. The results obtained with the simulations of the entire process highlight the importance of the collision model for the overall efficiency of the process.