Home  Case Studies Copper smelter tapping block design
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| Copper smelter tapping block design |
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| Written by David Featherston | ||||||||||||
 A design of a slag tapping block, typically used in copper smelting furnaces, was modelled using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) methods. These tapping blocks are used to extract molten metal and slag from the bottom of the furnace. The metal forms in a pool, with a slag blanket floating on top. All information regarding this example is available in the public domain.The tapping block is normally constructed from a cast copper plate with internal water cooling channels. A coolant, usually water, is passed through the channels to maintain the tapping block at an acceptable operational temperature. Two different coolant channel design configurations were modelled using CFD, simple and serpentine. These configurations are shown below. Each CFD tapping block models consisted of approximately 100,000 tetrahedral and prism cells. Cell wall spacing was identical in the two models. A realisable k- e RANS turbulence model, with an enhanced wall function was applied.  Pressure gradient and thermal effect options were implemented in the wall functions. An average y+ value of 35 was used, allowing computationally efficient calculation of water frictional pressure losses and heat transfer.  A coolant flow rate of 4.5L/s was split evenly between the two 32mm coolant passages, with an inlet temperature of 27 °C. The flow rate was selected to minimise the risk of film boiling in the coolant passages. Hence, no boiling model was applied. Copper slag was modelled as flowing through the 70mm tap hole with a flow rate of 43kg/s at 1227 °C. A heat flux boundary of 88W/m2 was also applied to the back of the tapping block to represent heat transfer from the furnace. It was found that the serpentine coolant passage configuration enhanced heat transfer within the tapping block, resulting in a 9 percent increase in the heat transfer to the coolant from the molten copper slag and an 18 percent drop in the average tapping block material temperature. However, this was offset by the maximum pressure losses through the tapping block coolant passages increasing by 68 percent.
References Furnace image (http://www.ausmelt.com.au/non_ferrous.htm) |
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