A Review of Steel Scrap Melting in Molten Iron-Carbon Melts

In the current economic climate, the recycling of steel scrap is become one of the most interesting tasks for the optimization of integrated steel plants. Steelmaking aspects such as jet/bath interaction, slag formation or foaming, lime dissolution as well as slag/metal reactions have received more attention in recent years than the melting and dissolution phenomena of steel scrap in molten steel baths. Since the dynamic modeling of steelmaking processes - especially the Linz Donawitz oxygen steelmaking process (LD) - is becoming more important, interest in the melting and dissolution behaviour is increasing. Several researchers have investigated the complex transactions of coupled heat and mass transfer in the past. Small-scale experiments are carried out under conditions where only mass transfer or heat transfer were considered. A few authors have reported on pilot-scale investigations or commercial converters. The coupled heat and mass transfer has also been analyzed by several authors in mathematical models and numerical simulations. The present paper reviews the research on steel scrap melting and dissolution done in the last 50 years. A summary of all reported heat and mass transfer coefficients will be given and the differences between natural and forced convection will be explained. In addition, an overview of recently published numerical simulation describing the problem will give an outlook for future work.