Basic oxygen furnace

The decarburisation is conducted in the converter process. The most common type of converter process if the basic oxygen furnace - also known as the Linz-Donawitz (LD) converter. In this process, the oxidising gas mixture is injected via supersonic top lance.

Highlights

• A thermodynamic-kinetic simulation tool for the BOF process. The model is based on solution of complex reaction equilibria with the help of Partiotioning of Gibbs Energy (PGE) routine. The model employs the Unified Interaction Parameter (UIP) formalism and Modified Quaasichemical Model (MQM) for describing the non-ideality of metal and slag species, respectively.In its current development stage the model accounts for the reactions between oxygen and carbon, manganese and silicon dissolved in the metal bath. Owing to the Gibbs energy minimisation routine, the model is capable of predicting the formation of solid compounds during the treatment.

Selected publications

• B. Mitas, V.-V. Visuri, and J. Schenk, “Mathematical Modeling of the Ejected Droplet Size Distribution in the Vicinity of a Gas-Liquid Impingement Zone,” Metallurgical and Materials Transactions B, forthcoming
• T. Haas, A. Ringel, V.-V. Visuri, M. Eickhoff, and H. Pfeifer, “Direct Measurement of the Direction, Size and Velocity of Droplets Generated by Top-blowing,” Steel Research International, vol. 90, no. 9, 2019. 1900177.
• A. Kruskopf and V.-V. Visuri, "A Gibbs Energy Minimization Approach for Modeling of Chemical Reactions in a Basic Oxygen Furnace", Metallurgical and Materials Transactions B: Process Metallurgy and Materials Processing Science, vol. 48, no. 6, pp. 3281–3300, 2017. 

Theses instructed

• M. Prokkola, "Development of steel alloying calculation model", Master's thesis, University of Oulu, 2016.
• S. Niemetmaa, "Improving yield and steel cleanliness by optimization of the tapping stage", Master's thesis, University of Oulu, 2015.