Model of Gas Flow Through Porous Refractory Applied to an Upper Tundish Nozzle

Argon gas commonly is injected into the liquid metal stream through the porous refractory walls in many metallurgical processes. In this work, a new model has been developed to investigate gas diffusion through heated porous refractory, including the effects of refractory geometry, the thermal expansion of the gas, temperature-dependent gas viscosity, and possible leakage into unsealed joints. A novel one-way-flow pressure boundary condition has been formulated and implemented to prevent unrealistic flow into the refractory. The complete model is validated with both analytical solutions of 1D test problems and observations of a water bubbling experiment. Then, to demonstrate practical application of this general model, argon gas flow is simulated through a double-slitted upper tundish nozzle during continuous steel casting with a slide-gate system. Realistic liquid steel pressure distributions with the bubbling threshold condition are applied on the inner surface. Parametric studies are conducted to investigate the effects of joint gas leakage, refractory conductivity, permeability, and injection pressure on the resulting gas distributions, gas mass flow rates, and leakage fraction. This new model of porous flow can serve as the first step of a comprehensive multiphase model system.