Study on the Impact Characteristics of Submerged CO2 and O2 Mixed Injection (S-COMI) in EAF Steelmaking

A new type of oxygen-supplying technology was developed for electric arc furnace (EAF) steelmaking using submerged CO2 and O-2 mixed injection (S-COMI). S-COMI injects O-2 into the molten steel bath directly by a submerged injector installed in the furnace bed; so the metallurgical reactions can be accelerated with a high utilization ratio of oxygen. However, there has been limited research on the impact characteristics of the S-COMI submerged gas jet in EAF steelmaking. In this study, water model experiments and numerical simulations were carried out to analyze the submerged gas jet behavior, and a theoretical model was built to depict the axis trajectory of submerged gas jet in the liquid bath. The numerical results were validated against the water model experiments to show that the gas flow rate and the installed angle have a significant influence on the jet impact characteristics. The results show that as the gas flow rate increases, the horizontal and vertical penetration distances increase; as the installed angle increases, the horizontal penetration distance increases while the vertical penetration distance decreases. In addition, the erosion mechanism of the element around the submerged injector exit was studied. As the installed angle increases, the velocity component in the vertical direction increases, the fluid flow is accelerated, and the wall shear stress of the underpart of the injector element increases. Therefore, the erosion rate of the upper part of the element decreases, while that of the underpart increases.