Optimisation of dual purging location for

better mixing in ladle: a water model study

Published by Maney Publishing (c) IOM Communications Ltd

K. Chattopadhyay*1, A. SenGupta2, S. K. Ajmani3, S. N. Lenka3 and V. Singh3

Mixing time studies were performed on a one-fifth scale aqueous model of a single tapered ladle
with different bottom purging locations. Two porous plugs were used simultaneously to purge
compressed air as an analogue to argon and this was referred as dual purging. KCl solution (1 N)
was used as the tracer for measuring mixing time. The scaled down gas flowrate varied from 10 to
80 L m21. Around 400 experiments were done including all possible dual purging locations and
the location which gives least mixing time was identified. The results were compared with
corresponding single purging experiments and it was found that dual purging can reduce mixing
time to a great extent even in the lower flowrate range and a location better than R/2 has been
suggested. Effect of differential flow on mixing time has also been reported.
Keywords: Dual purging, Mixing time, Differential flow

Introduction
Secondary steel making is today a very important
practice in the steel industry because of stringent quality
demands regarding steel cleanliness. In the ladle,
typically an inert gas like argon is purged through a
porous plug or two porous plugs fitted at the bottom to
circulate the steel. Proper mixing of the liquid is required
for desired homogenisation of temperature and composition, enhancement of reaction rate, removal of inclusions, deoxidation, etc. Mixing time is a very important
parameter in this regard because reducing the mixing
time improves the efficiency of the process, hence many
researchers have studied mixing phenomena in ladle
refining by water modelling.
Joo and Guthrie1 reported on mixing behaviour and
mixing mechanisms as a function of plug location, tracer
addition point and probe location. According to them,
mixing in the ladle mainly occurs by two phenomena,
bulk mixing and eddy current diffusion. In the former,
mixing occurs throughout the mass in a circulating
pattern, and in the latter mixing occurs by diffusion of
the energy given to the liquid by the rising gas bubbles.
They showed that off-centred bubbling is the best for
minimising mixing times. It has also been reported that
rapid mixing was achieved with gas injection at the mid
radius of the ladle, where both wall effects and relative
stagnation zones could be minimised.
Some researchers at Tata Steel have reported on the
various factors which influence mixing time.2 They are
ladle aspect ratio (H/D), presence of upper buoyant
phase (slag), nature of motion of the liquid phase,
1

Mining and Materials Engineering, McGill University, 3610 University

Street, Montreal, Quebec H3A2B2, Canada
Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, India
3
R&D, Tata Steel Ltd, Jamshedpur, India
2

*Corresponding author, email kinnor.chattopadhyay@mail.mcgill.ca

2009 Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining

Published by Maney on behalf of the Institute
Received 24 February 2009; accepted 8 April 2009
DOI 10.1179/174328109X445732

purging rate, purging location and tracer addition point.

Trukoglu and Farouk3 demonstrated that both vessel
aspect ratio and gas injection rate play crucial roles in
the flow structure in the bath and hence affect mixing
time. They reported the critical aspect ratio to be 1?5 for
least mixing time.
Takatsuka and Iguchi4 proved that presence of
swirling motion in the vessel can decrease mixing time
to a great extent. They also proposed an empirical
equation for calculation of mixing time. Yamashita and
Iguchi5,6 reported that mixing time increases due to the
presence of an upper buoyant phase because recirculating flows are suppressed and reverse emulsification takes
place. The entrapment of many oil droplets in the water
layer weakened the large scale recirculating flow in the
bath, and hence prolonged the mixing time. According
to Kim et al.7 mixing time decreases as the purging rate
increases due to more agitation of the liquid in the ladle.
It decreases sharply at the beginning but after a critical
flowrate the decrease is less pronounced.
For a given tuyere position, it has been observed that
a decrease in mixing time results in a higher mass
transfer rate. Two phase mass transfer rate is faster for a
centre tuyere for the same mixing time while the mixing
time for same mass transfer rate is shorter for an offcentre tuyere than for a centre tuyere.7
The position of tracer addition has a great effect on
mixing in the ladle especially when single purging is done
through the centre of bottom of the ladle. Better mixing
was observed when the tracer was added over the plume
eye.8 Ogawa and Onoue9 reported that mixing time for
induction stirring was shorter than that for gas bubbling
because the velocity distribution of the liquid in
induction stirring was more homogeneous and dead
space was induced at the corner of the ladle in gas
bubbling.
A gas jet can be divided into two regions: a region
near the nozzle where a continuous gas phase moves

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Optimisation of dual purging location for better mixing in ladle

gas envelope in the vicinity of the nozzle, which

subsequently breaks up within a short distance to form
a free bubble region. The plume region occupies most of
the space characterised by dispersed spherical cap
bubbles in the mixture. Near the free surface of the
liquid, the rising motion of the bubbles and the liquid
forms a spout.12 It was observed that the frequency of
bubble formation had a close relationship with the inner
diameter of the nozzle for a higher gas flowrate. The
frequency of bubble formation also depended on the gas
flowrate and the physical properties of gas and molten
metal. Vessel size had no effect on the mean bubble
rising velocity as long as the gas flowrate was low but the
effect became noticable as the gas flowrate exceeded a
critical value.13 In the immediate vicinity of the nozzle
the important variables are input gas kinetic energy and
mode of gas injection. Only potential energy afforded by
the rising gas bubbles can be regarded as the dominant
role of energy supply to the system and not the kinetic
energy.11
The main aim in ladle refining is to achieve gentle but
rapid mixing to promote metalslag interaction, to avoid
splashing, spitting and explosive degassing effects under
vacuum, and entrapping of non-metallic inclusion into
the bulk phase. To satisfy all these purposes, multiple
purging is needed. It has been determined by earlier
researchers that purging through opposite positions
placed at half radii in the ladle (R/2) was most
satisfactory.14 In this present study, it has been shown
that there are locations other than the half radii (R/2)
location where mixing time is even lower than that
obtained in R/2.

1 Probable purging locations

Published by Maney Publishing (c) IOM Communications Ltd

through the liquid, and a region some distance above the

nozzle where the jet has broken up into a column of
rising turbulent froth.10 The behaviour of the jet near
the orifice would be expected to be of greater importance
in the refractory wear problems associated with gas
injection. When the gas injection velocities were
relatively low, the jet behaviour near the orifice was
characterised by the formation of large unstable
bubbles, which disintegrated shortly after detachment
to form small bubbles.10
At high flowrates, a second regime of gas jet
behaviour was observed in which discrete bubbles were
no longer formed at the jet orifice. The gas emerged
from the nozzle in a continuous jet cone, which
disintegrated into bubbles. The transition between
bubbling and continuous jet flow was controlled by the
mass flowrate of gas per unit area of the jet orifice.10 The
gasliquid two phase region can be divided into four
regions, namely, primary bubble region, free bubble
region, plume bubble region and spout bubble region.11
The primary bubble region is characterised by a large

Experimental
A one-fifth scale plexi-glass ladle was constructed to
perform the water model experiments in this present
study. The plexi-glass vessel had the provision for gas

2 Experimental setup
Table 1 Probable purging locations

538

Experiment No.

Purging Locations

Experiment No.

Purging Locations

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8

(3R/4)W, (3R/4)E
(3R/4)W, (R/2)E
(3R/4)W, (R/4)E
(R/2)W, (R/4)E
(R/2)W, (R/2)E
(3R/4)W, (3R/4) NE
(3 R/4)W , {R/2)NE
(3R/4)W, (R/4)NE

9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16

(R/2)W, (R/4)NE
(R/2)W, (R/2)NE
(3R/4)W, (3R/4)N
(3R/4)W, (R/2)N
(3R/4)W, (R/4)N
(R/2)W, (R/4)N
(R/2)W, (R/2)N
(R/4)W, (R/4)E

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Published by Maney Publishing (c) IOM Communications Ltd

3 Probe location for all our experiments

injection through bottom tuyeres as shown in Figs. 1

and 2. The E, W, N, S notations were used for
convenience and the locations are listed in Table 1.
The ladle was filled with tap water with the help of a
pump and compressed air was purged at a definite scaled
down rate into the vessel through the bottom tuyeres.
The air flowrate was maintained constant for a
particular experiment with the help of rotameters.
The argon purging rate in the actual ladle in the plant
ranges between 85 to 425 L min21 which corresponds to
10 to 80 L min21 of air flowrates for one-fifth scale
water model experiments. KCI solution of 1 N strength
was used as the tracer and 50 mL of tracer solution was
added for each experiment. An electrical conductivity
probe was placed at 200 mm above the bottom and at
3R/4 from the centre of the ladle. The conductivity of the
water was detected by an electrical conductivity meter
which was connected to a personal computer through a
pico log data acquisition system. The probe location was
kept fixed for all experiments as shown in Fig. 3
Before starting the experiments the probe was
calibrated. Fifty millilitres of 1 N KCI solution was
added and the conductivity was monitored.
Conductivity was plotted as a function of tracer
concentration as shown in Fig. 4. As concentration of
the bath increased, the conductivity of the solution also
changed linearly. Subsequently the tracer addition was
made in the linear range of the calibration to ensure that
the differential change in the conductivity sensed by the
probe was independent of the initial bath concentration.
The calibration was found to be absolutely linear.
The mixing time is defined as the time required from
the instant of tracer addition until the concentration
level in the vessel attains a desired level of homogeneity.
The method adopted here specifies a degree of homogeneity based on the detected tracer concentration at a
particular point in the vessel as a function of time.

4 Calibration of conductivity probe

5 Mixing time as a function of gas owrate when probe

is in diametrically opposite position with respect to
purging location

There were controversial discussions as to the value at

which the homogeneity criterion has to be set for the
best estimation of the mixing time. If 100% homogeneity
is taken as the criterion for the estimation, then mixing
time will tend to infinity. Hence it has become a general
practice to choose the criteria of mixing time in the
range 9599% of the steady state value. Here 99% of the
steady state value was adopted. A typical mixing
experiment consists of setting up a predefined flowrate
condition. The data acquisition were started approximately 10 s before adding the tracer solution in order to
record the information on the initial state of the water
bath in the vessel prior to tracer addition. When a steady
state conductivity value was reached, the tracer solution
was added quickly but gently. On addition of the tracer,

6 Mixing time as function of gas owrate when probe is

at right angle with respect to purging location

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Optimisation of dual purging location for better mixing in ladle

7 Variation of mixing time with different positions of

probe when using two tuyeres

Results and discussion

with gas flowrate when the angle between the two

tuyeres is 180u. Here it is clearly seen that the when
the purging location is 3R/4W, R/2E, the mixing time is
the least as compared to all other purging locations in
the flowrate range of 1050 L min21. However, at high
air flowrate of 80 L min21 the location R/2W, R/2E is
better because it gives least mixing time compared to all
other locations.
Use of such high flowrate is perhaps not recommended in actual practice as it may lead to high rate of
refractory erosion and high surface fluctuations. When
the location R/4W, R/4E was used it was seen that both
the plumes merged together and resulted as a single
plume at the centre. Figure 9 shows variation of mixing
time with gas flowrate when the angle between the
two tuyeres was 135u. When the tuyeres were at 3R/4W,

The effect of probe location on mixing time was first

studied. In all cases 99% mixing times were considered.
It was found that when air was purged through a single
bottom tuyere, for the same purging location, different
values of mixing time were obtained with different
positions of the probe. This is shown in Figs. 5 and 6. In
Fig. 5 it is seen that as gas flowrate increases mixing time
decreases. But in Fig. 6 some abnormal trends have been
observed. This proves that the positioning of the probe
has a major effect and it should be kept fixed in a
diametrically opposite position for all experiments. On
the contrary, when compressed air was purged through
two bottom tuyeres there was almost no change in
mixing time with different probe locations. Figure 7
shows results of dual purging with different probe
locations.
Mixing time (99%) was plotted as a function of air
flowrate for all dual purging experiments. It has been
reported in the literature that mixing time decreases with
increasing gas flowrate. The same trend was observed in
all the experiments but an interesting point was that in
many experiments mixing time increased for a high air
flowrate of 80 L min21. This may be due to some
reversed flows. Figure 8 shows variation of mixing time

9 Mixing time as a function of gas owrate (angle

between two purging tuyeres is 135 degrees)

a considerable fluctuation in the conductivity value at

the probe tip was experienced as there was a fluctuation
of the amount of tracer passing through the probe tip.
The conductivity of the bath was recorded continuously
by the data acquisition system for a period of 12 min
until a steady state value of the conductivity was
reached. The mixing time for each experiment was
calculated as the time required for the concentration
level to reach within 1001% of the steady state
concentration from the time of tracer addition. Every
experiment was repeated at least thrice and the average
value was taken as the mixing time.

540

8 Mixing time as a function of gas owrate (angle

between two purging tuyeres is 180 degrees)

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13 Effect of differential ow on mixing time when one of

tuyeres is at R/2W

10 Mixing time as a function of gas owrate (angle

between two purging tuyeres is 90 degrees)

14 Effect of differential ow on mixing time when one of

tuyeres is at 3R/4W

11 Overall best purging location where mixing time is

least compared to all other locations

12 Comparison of mixing time at our locations with that

at commonly used half radii location (R/2W, R/2E)

R/4NE, the mixing time was the least when compared to

all other locations. The fact that there is an increase in
mixing time at 80 L min21 is also evident in this case.
Figure 10 shows variation of mixing time with gas
flowrate when the angle between the two tuyeres is
90u.The tendency of increase in mixing time at
80 L min21 is more in this case. The location R/2W,
R/4N is the best because it gives least mixing time
compared to all other locations. Figure 11 shows a
comparison between three best locations taken from
Figs 810. From this graph it can be concluded that the
location 3R/4W, R/4NE is the overall best location.
The results were compared with the commonly used
R/2 (or R/2W, R/2E) location. Figure 12 shows a
comparison of R/2 location with the three best
locations obtained in this present water model study.
It is clearly seen here that the locations 3R/4W, R/4NE
and 3R/4W, R/2E give better results in terms of mixing
time than the commonly used R/2 location. Another
main advantage of these two best locations is that at low
gas flowrates (1050 L min21) the mixing time is less
than that at R/2. So even if one of the plugs is near the
wall, lower flowrate will prevent wall erosion.
From all the experiments with different tuyere
positions, six locations (where mixing times are reasonably short) were selected and experiments with differential flow were performed. Differential flow means that
the total flowrate is divided between the porous plugs in
a ratio other than 1 : 1. Figures 13 and 14 show the effect
of differential flow on mixing time. It can be seen from
Fig. 13 that there is some improvement in mixing time at
certain locations but in Fig. 14 there is no improvement
but rather detriment in some cases.

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Optimisation of dual purging location for better mixing in ladle

Conclusions

References

1. The positioning of the conductivity probe is very

important when only one tuyere is used for purging. A
position diametrically opposite to the tuyere is favourable. However, when two tuyeres are used simultaneously, the position of the probe is not very important
because there is almost no variation in mixing time at
different probe locations.
2. For a particular air flowrate, the use of two tuyeres
reduces mixing time substantially as compared to the use
of only one tuyere.
3. In dual purging the location 3R/4W, R/4NE is the best
because here the mixing time is the shortest when compared
to all other locations. Although higher air flowrate gives the
shortest mixing time at other locations, use of high flowrate
at tuyeres near the wall is not recommended because it may
lead to high rate of wall erosion.
4. The results from this study showed much improvement in mixing time than the commonly used half radii
R/2 (or R/2W, R/2E) location.
5. Differential flow did not show any pronounced
improvement of mixing time in most of the cases.

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