Basic oxygen furnace

In contemporary integrated ore-based steelmaking, decarburisation of the hot metal produced in the blast furnace is conducted in a basic oxygen furnace. The most common variants of this process are based on the Linz–Donawitz (LD) converter. In this process, the oxidising gas mixture is injected through a supersonic top lance.

Highlights

• A thermodynamic–kinetic simulation tool was developed for the BOF process. The model is based on the solution of complex reaction equilibria using the Partitioning of Gibbs Energy (PGE) routine. The model employs the Unified Interaction Parameter (UIP) formalism and Modified Quasichemical Model (MQM) to describe the non-ideality of metal and slag species, respectively. At its current stage of development, 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

• V.-V. Visuri and L. Holappa, “Converter Steelmaking", Treatise on Process Metallurgy – Volume 3: Industrial Processes (S. Seetharaman, R. Guthrie, A. McLean, S. Seetharaman, and H. Y. Sohn, eds.), pp. 183–241, Elsevier, 2 ed., 2024
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• J. Nissilä, M. Pylvänäinen, V.-V. Visuri, P. Ruotsalainen, J. Laurila, A. Rankinen, T. Palovaara, and T. Liedes, “Vibration and Audio Measurements in the Monitoring of Basic Oxygen Furnace Steelmaking", Metallurgical and Materials Transactions B, vol. 54, no. 6, pp. 2929–2950, 2023
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• B. Mitas, V.-V. Visuri, and J. Schenk, “Modeling the Residence Time of Metal Droplets in Slag during BOF Steelmaking,” Metallurgical and Materials Transactions B, vol. 54, no. 4, pp. 1938–1953, 2023
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• 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, vol. 53, no. 5, pp. 3083–3094, 2022
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• 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.
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• 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, vol. 48, no. 6, pp. 3281–3300, 2017.
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