Magnetohydrodynamics in metallurgical processes using electric currents
held by Assoc. Prof. Abdellah Kharicha
27 October at 10:00 AM in D3, room number 204
In metallurgy, electric currents are applied for heating, melting, and for promoting electrochemical mass transfer. The currents are passed through low conductivity media such as a salt, slags, or plasmas to generate high Joule heating intensity. Typical processes are electric arc furnaces, aluminum reduction cells, welding, electroslag and vacuum arc remelting. Such processes are naturally stirred by the Lorentz forces resulting from the interaction of the applied current with its own self magnetic field (created by the current itself). Electroslag remelting (ESR) and the vacuum arc remelting process (VAR) are two examples of secondary metallurgical process using electric currents.
To understand such processes, a numerical model was built to simulate the coupling between multiphase and magnetohydrodynamic phenomena. The model can predict the electric and magnetic field distribution in function of the metallic distribution in a low electric conductivity media.