Behaviors of supersonic double-parameter

jets and their impingement onto molten

bath in BOF steelmaking
Cite as: AIP Advances 10, 105307 (2020); https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0020610
Submitted: 03 July 2020 • Accepted: 12 September 2020 • Published Online: 05 October 2020

Xi Wang, Guangqiang Liu and Kun Liu

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AIP Advances 10, 105307 (2020); https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0020610 10, 105307

© 2020 Author(s).
 AIP Advances ARTICLE scitation.org/journal/adv

Behaviors of supersonic double-parameter jets

and their impingement onto molten bath in BOF
steelmaking
Cite as: AIP Advances 10, 105307 (2020); doi: 10.1063/5.0020610
Submitted: 3 July 2020 • Accepted: 12 September 2020 •
Published Online: 5 October 2020

Xi Wang, Guangqiang Liu,a) and Kun Liu

AFFILIATIONS
School of Materials and Metallurgy, University of Science and Technology Liaoning, Anshan 114051, China

a)
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed: lgqiang0305@sina.com

ABSTRACT
The dynamic characteristics of supersonic double-parameter jets and their interaction with the molten pool were experimentally studied. The
effects of jet inclination angles and gas flow ratios on gas intensity, coalescence characteristics, and dynamic parameter distributions were
discussed. The characteristics of the cavity formed by the interaction of the jet and molten pool were revealed. The results show that the jet
inclination angle has more influence on the jet coalescence compared with the gas flow rate. However, the gas flow ratio plays a decisive
role in the velocity distribution along the jet centerline compared with the jet inclination angle. The velocity peaks of the double-parameter
jets were obviously different at fixed axial distances. Compared with other variables, the small-nozzle inclination has a greater impact on the
cavity diameter, while the large-nozzle flow ratio has a greater impact on the cavity depth. The depth and width of the cavity formed by the
double-parameter jets are more advantageous than that formed by the single-parameter jets. Furthermore, the double-parameter jets were
applied to the actual smelting of a 260t converter.
© 2020 Author(s). All article content, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0020610., s

I. INTRODUCTION behaviors.7–11 Through years of research, the effect of design vari-

In many industrial engineering applications, the impingement
of a high-speed jet onto a liquid surface is commonly encoun-
tered. The interaction between the jet and the liquid surface is of
great significance to the transfer of mass, dynamics, hydrodynam-
ics, and thermal energy in the process equipment involved, which
determines their performance.1–3 In the process of BOF (basic oxy-
gen furnace) steelmaking, high pressure oxygen is transformed into
supersonic jets through lance nozzles and ejected into the molten
pool.4 The dynamical behavior of jets plays an important role in oxy-
gen supply and slagging. The complex physical phenomena in the
blowing process are closely related to the impact effect of jets on the
molten pool.5,6 Therefore, it is essential to understand the behav-
iors of jets for better designing and operating the oxygen lance in
practice.
In the past, various efforts have been made to enhance
the understanding of single injection and multiple injection
ables on the dynamics of a single jet has been well understood.
The relevant mathematical and physical models have been mature
and widely used in various applications. Compared with the single
jet, the hydrodynamic behaviors of the multiple jets are drastically
more complicated due to their interaction than that of the single
jet. Research on multiple jets’ behavior and their interaction with
the liquid is a hot spot for a long time. For example, Higuchi and
Tago8 analyzed the effect of nozzle size on dynamic pressure and
trajectory of jets using numerical simulation. Li et al.12,13 and Wang
et al.14 numerically studied the effect of nozzle inclination on the
dynamic trajectory of a jet and found that a smaller inclination angle
will intensify the interference among the multiple jets. Some labo-
ratory experimental studies of multiple jets were also conducted by
Yuan et al.15 and Higuchi and Tago.8,16 The detailed knowledge of
the dynamics under various conditions for the so-called conven-
tional “normal jet” is constantly accumulating, which has made an
important contribution to the BOF steelmaking. However, with the

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increased demand for improving production efficiency and reducing
cost, these normal jets cannot provide satisfactory solutions for fur-
ther optimization of the device due to their inherent characteristics
and limitations in operational factors and for controlling metallurgi-
cal performance. These problems have resulted in the consideration
of novel jets for improving the dynamic performance, and an impor-
tant innovative design, namely, “double-parameter jets,” has been
developed.
Figure 1 compares the schematic diagrams of the normal jets
and the double-parameter jets. The characteristic of the normal
jets is the consistency of dynamic behavior for its individual jet, as
shown in Fig. 1(a). Accordingly, the normal jets can also be defined
as “single-parameter jets.”17 By contrast, double-parameter jets are
characterized by two groups of jets with different inclination angles
and gas flows, and the distance of shaft centers for the two sets of the
jets is also different. Therefore, double-parameter jets can provide
more extensive design parameters compared to single-parameter
jets. Based on water model experiments, some studies have indicated
that double-parameter jets can provide a tremendous advantage and
potential use value in the improvement of the metallurgical per-
formance.15 However, double-parameter jets have not been widely
applied to a BOF under commercial production conditions. The rea-
son is that the dynamic characteristics of the double-parameter jets
and their interaction with the molten steel are still unclear.
The aim of the present work is to understand the dynamic
characteristics of the innovative double-parameter jets based on jet
AIP Advances 10, 105307 (2020); doi: 10.1063/5.0020610
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FIG. 1. Schematic diagrams of (a) normal jets and (b)
double-parameter jets.
test experiments and water model experiments. The coupling effect
of flow ratio and jet inclination angle on the characteristics of jet
dynamics and the cavity morphology of the molten pool is the main
objective of the current study. The following three aspects were dis-
cussed in detail: (i) characteristics of jet dynamics including jet tra-
jectory, velocity along an individual jet centerline, radial distribution
of jet velocity, and effective impact area; (ii) interaction between the
double-parameter jets and the molten bath including the splash-
ing capacity, cavity shape, and cavity size; and (iii) metallurgical
properties in the actual smelting process.
II. APPARATUS AND EXPERIMENTS
Figure 2 shows the schematic of the experimental setup includ-
ing an air supply system, an injection test system, and a water model
system. The air supply system mainly includes a high capacity air
compressor and a gas tank. Two jets from the main pipe of the
gas tank were used for the jet test experiment and water model test
experiment, respectively. The jet test system mainly includes mul-
tiple nozzles, measuring point control device, signal information
collection, and data processing device. The measuring point con-
trol device consists of a coordinate control platform and a row of
sampling probes. The distance between adjacent probes is 16 mm.
The probe can rotate in the axial and radial directions of the jets.
The signal information collection device is composed of 61 sam-
pling sensors, corresponding to 61 sampling probes, which convert
FIG. 2. Schematic diagram of the exper-
imental setup.
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TABLE I. Geometrical parameters and operating conditions of BOF.

Dimensions Prototype 1/7th model

Bath diameter, D (mm) 6120 2040

Melt height, h (mm) 1800 600
Gas flow rate, Q (N m3 /h) 39 000–58 000 277–417
Jet height, H (mm) 1 200–3 600 400–1200

FIG. 3. Schematic diagram of the interaction of the gas jet with the molten pool.
The dynamic similarity between the model and the actual sys-
tem ensured using the nondimensional Weber number (We) and
Froude number (Fr).18,19 The Fr is a nondimensional parameter
that can normalize nearly all the ejection parameters implemented
in this study, especially gravity, which has a great influence on the
development of the cavity size in the gas-jet impingement. However,
although We accounts for the effect of surface tension, it neglects the
gravity, and hence, it cannot be used as the criterion. Hence, the Fr
similarity criterion was given preference over the We criterion and
was modified as18,19

the gas pressure signal into 4 mA–20 mA. The control system in the
control cabinet digitizes the 4 mA–20 mA of the sensor into the cor-
responding pressure value and transmits the data to the computer.
The water mode test system mainly consists of an air supply system
including a converter made of plexiglass, copper jetting lances with
different nozzle arrangements, a lifting platform, and a high-speed
video camera.
In BOF steelmaking, the top-blown oxygen gas jets create a
cavity on the surface of the molten bath consisting of metal and
slag phases and simultaneously cause splashing (Fig. 3). In order
to model this physical situation, a top-blown gas jetting system was
constructed by reducing a commercial 260t BOF in a 1:3 ratio. Com-
pressible air and water were utilized to represent oxygen gas and
metal, respectively. The slag phase was not considered. It means that
the effect of slag on the cavity size and droplet generation cannot be
predicted by the present model. There was no chemical reaction in
the model, that is to say, the change of energy in the system is not
considered.
v2g ρg
Fr′ = , (1)
ghρ1
where vg is the superficial gas velocity (m/s), H is the characteris-
tic length (m), g is the gravitational acceleration (m/s2 ), and ρg and
ρl are the gas density (kg/m3 ) and liquid density (kg/m3 ), respec-
tively. The model and prototype parameters calculated based on the
geometric and dynamic similarities are listed in Table I.
During the interaction between the jets and the molten pool
in BOF steelmaking, when the jet inclination angle is more than
18○ , the impact strength of the jets onto the molten pool is too
weak. Moreover, the furnace wall is more likely to be eroded.
When the angle is less than 12○ , the impact strength of the jets
is increased markedly, which may cause splashing outside the fur-
nace, resulting in safety accidents. Therefore, according to practical
experience, eight kinds of design schemes with different flow ratios
and inclination angles were selected in this experiment, and the
single-parameter jet was taken as the comparison. The geometric
parameters of nozzles for jet formation are listed in Table II.

TABLE II. Geometrical parameters of the nozzles for jet formation.a

Inclination angle, Gas flow rate, Exit diameter, Throat diameter, Outlet axis distance,
Dimensions αb /αs (deg/deg) Qb /Qs (%) deb /des (mm/mm) dt b /dt s (mm/mm) Lb /Ls (mm/mm)

(a) 12/16 60/40 20.3/15.6 15.1/12.6 36.6/39.9

(b) 12/18 60/40 20.3/15.6 15.1/12.6 36.6/39.9
(c) 14/16 60/40 20.3/15.6 15.1/12.6 36.6/39.9
(d) 14/18 60/40 20.3/15.6 15.1/12.6 36.6/39.9
(e) 12/16 65/35 21.3/15.4 15.9/11.7 36.6/39.9
(f) 12/18 65/35 21.3/15.4 15.9/11.7 36.6/39.9
(g) 14/16 65/35 21.3/15.4 15.9/11.7 36.6/39.9
(h) 14/18 65/35 21.3/15.4 15.9/11.7 36.6/39.9
(i) 14.5 50 18.4 14 38.3
a
Subscripts b and s are for large jets and small jets, respectively.

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A graduated wire was fixed horizontally at the gas–liquid inter-
face to record the size of the cavity. A Canon 1D (EOS 1D X Mark II)
video camera was used to record the images. After a stable blowing
condition was established (∼20 s after the beginning of jetting), the
images were captured at a rate of 16 fps. The images, taken under
various conditions, were processed using the Image J 1.51 software.
In order to obtain a clear view of the cavity, the image of the gas–
liquid interface was sharpened by adjusting the minimum and max-
imum brightness and contrast to 100 and 250, respectively. It should
be noted that the waves formed inside the cavity make it difficult to
define the width and the depth of the cavity from the images. To
minimize the measurement errors, the average value from the 16
images was calculated.
III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
A. Jet trajectory
When the multi-nozzle jets proceed, the center of each individ-
ual jet gradually deviates from its nozzle axis and tends to converge
FIG. 4. Velocity contours at the middle plane for the double-parameter jets and single-parameter jets: (a)–(i) correspond to the jet number in Table II.
AIP Advances 10, 105307 (2020); doi: 10.1063/5.0020610
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into a whole. It is due to the expansion of flow, which causes mul-
tiple jets to interfere and attract each other. This phenomenon is
often known as jet coalescence,12 which can affect the subsequent
process phenomena that occur in certain industrial applications. In
the process of converter steelmaking, the jets’ coalescence behav-
ior has an important influence on the shape of the cavity, splashing,
stirring, and oxygen supply efficiency. Coalescence can weaken the
attenuation of the jet impact momentum to a certain extent, thus
maintaining greater penetration and stirring ability of the molten
pool. However, its overall size will be reduced, thus reducing the
impact area.20
The velocity contours at the middle plane for the double-
parameter jets and single-parameter jets are shown in Fig. 4. It can
be observed that the diameter of the jet increases gradually with
the jet traveling. With a larger jet inclination angle, the individ-
ual jet likely shows weaker interference extent with each other and
thus prefers to proceed in an independent way. For example, the
jets with an inclined angle of 14○ /18○ adopted in Figs. 4(d) and
4(h) were more independent than the jets with an angle of 12○ /16○
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adopted in Figs. 4(a) and 4(e). Comparing the jet characteristics

with the same jet inclination but different flow ratios, it was found
that the flow ratio has little effect on jet coalescence, for example,
the span between the jets shown in Figs. 4(a) and 4(e) was not
much different. It can also be seen from Fig. 4 that the span of the
single-parameter jets is smaller than that of the double-parameter
jets, which means that the jet independence is poor for the single-
parameter jet. It should be noted that different interaction modes
among jets lead to different dynamic behaviors of jets, resulting
in different impact modes. Thus, the refining reaction and spatter
behavior in the molten pool are affected.

B. Velocity along an individual jet centerline

In order to better reveal the dynamic properties at different jet
inclination angles and gas flow rates for the double-parameter jets,
Figs. 5 and 6 show the axial velocity distribution of the large jet flow
and the small jet flow along the centerline of a single jet, respec-
tively. Because of the continuous turbulent entrainment of the jet
to the surrounding environment, the axial velocity of all the nozzles
will monotonously decay as the jet proceeds. The results show that
under the same axial distance, the axial velocity of the large noz-
zles for the double-parameter jets is higher than that of the single- FIG. 6. Variation of velocity on the small nozzle jet centerline with the jet traveling
parameter jets, while the axial velocity of the small nozzles for the under different variables.
double-parameter jets is lower than that of the single-parameter jet.
Taking the axial velocity along the jet centerline of H = 700 mm
as an example, when the flow ratio of Qb /Qs was 60/40, the axial
velocities of the four large nozzles and the four small nozzles were ratio plays a decisive role in the jet center velocity distribution. Noz-
(175–180) m/s and (148–155) m/s, respectively, while that of the zles with a larger flow rate can produce a stronger jet impact force,
single-parameter jet was 165 m/s. When the flow ratio of Qb /Qs thus forming a deeper impact cavity on the molten pool in BOF steel-
increased to 65/35, the axial velocities of the four large nozzles and making. As such, an appropriate gas flow ratio is expected for oxygen
the small nozzles were (185–195) m/s and (114–129) m/s, respec- steelmaking operations to achieve favorable bath stirring and flow
tively. Therefore, compared with the jet inclination angle, the flow condition.

C. Radial distribution of jet velocity

FIG. 5. Variation of velocity on the large nozzle jet centerline with the jet traveling
under different variables.
Figure 7 shows the radial distribution of the jet velocity at axial
distances of 500 mm and 700 mm. The results show that the increase
in the axial distance makes the velocity difference between the lance
axis and the single jet center smaller, and the radial distribution
curve of the velocity becomes flatter. Furthermore, the span of the
radial velocity profile becomes wider with the increase in the jet
inclination angle, which can be obtained from the comparison of
Figs. 7(e) and 7(h).
The velocity peak values of the single-parameter jets have a
slight difference because each jet has the same design parameters.
Different from the single-parameter jets, the velocity peaks of the
double-parameter jets were obviously dissimilar. This characteris-
tic is closely related to the flow ratio. The larger the flow ratio is,
the greater the difference of peak velocity is. For example, the differ-
ence between the two velocity peaks of four nozzles with a flow ratio
(Qb /Qs ) of 60/40 was (35–50) m/s, and the interpolation between
the two velocity peaks of four nozzles with a flow ratio of 65/35 was
(68–76) m/s.
Figure 8 presents the velocity contour of jets on the horizontal
cross-sectional area at the axial distance of 700 mm for different jet
inclination angles and gas flow ratios. It is observed from Fig. 8(i)
that, for the single-parameter jet, the velocity contours are close to
a circle and the maximum velocity of each jet is almost equal. The

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FIG. 7. Radial distributions of the velocity at distances of 700 mm and 500 mm for the double-parameter jets and single-parameter jets: (a)–(i) correspond to the jet number
in Table II.

jets generated by the double-parameter nozzles, however, form an
approximate triangle, as schematically depicted in Figs. 8(a)–8(h).
Take into account these results, the shape of depression and imping-
ing mode can be postulated. It can also be seen that the boundaries of
each jet tend to merge when the inclination angle is smaller, whereas
they are almost independent with each other as the inclination angle
increased to 14/18. That is to say, with the increase in the inclination
angle, the interaction among the jets gets weaker and the jets less
likely tend to coalescence.
In BOF steelmaking, the velocity contour distribution normally
represents the cavity width formed by the impinging jets on the
molten pool, and the axial velocity magnitude determines the cav-
ity depth.21,22 The depth and the width together determine the shape
and size of the cavity. It can be seen that when the jet angle was
14○ /18○ as shown in Figs. 8(d) and 8(h), the interference among the
jets was relatively less, and each jet was almost independent after
leaving the nozzles. When the jet impinges on the liquid surface
of the molten pool, several scattered cavities can be formed. With
decreasing jet inclination angle, the interaction was strengthened.
The interaction increases with the decrease in jet angle. When the jet
inclination angle was reduced to 12○ /16○ , the jets were pulled from
each other, gradually mixed and combined into a single jet, as shown
in Figs. 8(a) and 8(e). In addition, it can be predicted that when the
flow ratio (Qb /Qs ) is 65/35, the impact momentum of the jet is higher
and the cavity will be deeper.
D. Effective impact area
The effective impingement area of the jet largely characterizes
the interaction between the jet and the liquid bath.23 In laboratory
experiments, it is usually estimated based on the velocity distribu-
tion of the jet near the surface of the molten pool and expressed by
the cross-sectional area of the distribution when the velocity con-
tour level is less than a certain threshold. In order to quantitatively
determine the effective impact area of the double-parameter jets, the
effective area ratio (AI ) was defined as
AI = AD /AS , (2)
where AD and AS represent the effective impact area of the double-
parameter jets and the single-parameter jets, respectively. Figure 9
presents the effective impact area of the jets with different inclina-
tion angles and flow ratios. The jet boundary was here determined

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FIG. 8. Velocity maps of the jets on the horizontal plane of H = 700 mm for the double-parameter jets and single-parameter jets: (a)–(i) correspond to the jet number in
Table II.
by assuming the velocity contour of 50 m/s.12 It can be seen that
the cross-sectional shape of the jets with different inclination angles
and flow ratios behaves differently. The effective impact area of each
individual jet from the single-parameter nozzle tends to merge into
FIG. 9. Effective impact area on the horizontal plane of H = 700 mm for the double-
parameter jets and the single-parameter jets.
AIP Advances 10, 105307 (2020); doi: 10.1063/5.0020610
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an integral one. For the double-parameter jets, however, the jets tend
to separate, especially when the inclination angle was selected as
14○ /18○ , as shown in Figs. 9(d) and 9(h). In the present condition,
the cross-sectional area of the jets increased with the increase in the
inclination angle, and the effective impact area with the inclination
angle of 14○ /18○ was found to be the largest. However, the influence
of the flow ratio on the effective impact area is not significant. In
other words, increasing the jet flow does not significantly increase
the jet cross-sectional area.
E. Interaction between the jets and the molten bath
It is well known that the cavity size affects the mixing of the bath
and is closely related to most chemical reactions in the BOF steel-
making. The literature shows that the cavity shape determines the
contact area between oxygen and metal in the impact zone, where
more than 50% of the total carbon could be removed.24 The cav-
ity shape also affects the ejection of droplets,25 thus affecting the
refining reaction in the emulsion region in which more than 40%
of the carbon can be removed.24 Therefore, improving the crater-
ing process in a gas–liquid flow system corresponding to steelmak-
ing, the cavity dimensions are helpful to improve the BOF perfor-
mance, which can bring significant economic benefits. In the past,
some efforts have been made to study the influence of the flow
rate and the jet inclined angle on the cavity size.25–28 Unfortunately,
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most of these studies were focused on the normal jet. The cavity
shape of a jet impinging onto the molten pool under the coupling
effect of inclination and flow rate has not been reported in the
literature.
Figure 10 compares the images of cavities formed by the
double-parameter jets and the single-parameter jets under the noz-
zle height of 700 mm. It can be observed that an integral cavity was
obtained by the single-parameter jets. However, alternately scattered
deep and shallow cavities were formed when the double-parameter
jets were applied. The interaction between the cavities formed by the
double-parameter jets was less than that formed by single-parameter
jet, which is consistent with the image of the effective impact area
described in Fig. 8.
The deeper cavity can promote the flow of molten steel in the
converter, thereby shortening the mixing time. Figure 11 shows the
ratio of the cavity depth of the double-parameter jets to that of the
single-parameter jets (nD /nS ) as the total gas flow Q = 150 m3 /h
FIG. 11. The influence of different jet inclination angles and flow ratios on the cavity
and the jet height H = 500 mm and H = 700 mm. Here, the cavity
depth.
depth was described as the greatest depth of the gas jet penetrating
the liquid bath. It is noted that the cavity depth increases with the
increasing gas flow rate Qb /Qs but fixing the jet inclination angles.
The reason is that the greater gas flow rate provides more impact This means that the jet ability to stir the converter molten pool was
energy to push away more liquid and, therefore, generates a deeper reduced.
cavity. However, it is impossible to increase the jet momentum by The previous studies have demonstrated that increasing the
reducing the inclination of the nozzle to obtain a deeper cavity. From width of the cavity can effectively improve the oxidation rate for
Fig. 11, as the large nozzle inclination decreases from 14○ to 12○ decarburization.8,20 Figure 12 shows the ratio of the cavity width of
at a fixed gas flow rate, the cavity depth changes slightly. There- the double-parameter jets to that of the single-parameter jets (bD /bS )
fore, the gas flow ratio Qb /Qs is the key factor to determine the as the total gas flow Q = 150 m3 /h and the jet height H = 500 mm
cavity depth. When the gas flow ratio of the large nozzle was 60% and 700 mm. It is obvious that most of the double-parameter jets
and the inclination angle of the large and small nozzles was 14○ have a larger cavity width than the single-parameter jets. Therefore,
and 18○ , respectively, the depth of the cavity formed by the double- double-parameter jets have advantages in improving dephospho-
parameter jets may be lower than that of the single-parameter jet. rization efficiency. The results also indicated that the cavity width

FIG. 10. Images of cavity shapes on the horizontal plane of H = 700 mm for the double-parameter jets and the single-parameter jets: (a)–(i) correspond to the jet number in
Table II.

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FIG. 12. The influence of different jet inclination angles and flow ratios on the cavity
width.
becomes larger as increasing the small nozzle inclination αs but fix-
ing the flow ratio Qb /Qs and the jet height H, and this characteristic
is more noticeable with the increase in nozzle height. However, the
cavity width shows almost no change with the increasing large noz-
zle inclination αb or flow ratio Qb /Qs . The reason is that the small
nozzles are distributed outside the lance head and have a larger incli-
nation angle compared with the large nozzles, which play a key role
in improving the jet independence and increasing the cavity diam-
eter. The experimental results in this study agree well with similar
results obtained by Li et al.28 In their analysis of the cavity dimen-
sions induced by a normal multiple-nozzle jet, the cavity diameter is
found much less affected by the gas flow rate compared with the jet
flow inclination angle.
It should be noted that the variation of the cavity width calcu-
lated in Fig. 12 is slightly different from that of the effective impact
area calculated in Fig. 9. The main reason is that the effective impact
area is calculated by the area of each cavity. In the actual blowing
process, the vibration of the cavity is violent, so it is difficult to
accurately capture the interface between the cavities. Therefore, the
measured cavity width is the width of the spatter outer edge during
the blowing process.
F. Industrial application
Based on the experimental results, the double-parameter jets
were applied to the actual smelting of a 260t converter. The smelting
effect was compared with that of the normal jet. The oxygen lance
TABLE III. Geometrical parameters of the double-parameter nozzles under commercial production conditions.
Flow ratio Exit diameter Throat diameter
(%) de (mm) dt (mm)
Large nozzles 60 3 × Φ60.9 3 × Φ45.7
Small nozzles 40 3 × Φ49.7 3 × Φ37.6
AIP Advances 10, 105307 (2020); doi: 10.1063/5.0020610
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FIG. 13. Double-parameter oxygen lance for 260 t converter: (a) vertical view and
(b) lateral view.
used to generate the innovative jet and its specific size is shown in
Fig. 13 and listed in Table III, respectively.
The oxygen supply was (52 000 ± 1000) N m3 /h. The working
oxygen pressure of the blowing process was (1.0 ± 0.1) MPa. The
lance height during the primary blowing period was (2.8–3.2) m and
during the catch carbon process was (2.1–2.4) m. In the middle stage
of the converting process, the lance height was adjusted according to
the actual field conditions, about (2.4–2.8) m. The furnace campaign
was between 3000 and 4000. In order to ensure the reliability com-
pared with the normal oxygen jet currently applied, the difference
between the composition of pretreatment of hot metal used in the
industrial experiment and that of the normal lance was within ±5%;
for details, see Table IV.
The representative metallurgical data of 500 furnaces for the
same steel grades were recorded and analyzed, and the average value
was taken as the final results. Table V illustrates a comparison of the
key metallurgical index between the double-parameter jets and the
normal jets.
The BOF industrial results show that many metallurgical
characteristics were optimized by the application of the double-
parameter jets. As can be seen, the blowing time was reduced by
51 s at the same oxygen gas flow rates. The actual oxygen consump-
tion was reduced by 1.6 N m3 /t, whereas the oxygen supply intensity
was increased by 0.07 N m3 /t min. Moreover, the dephosphorization
rate was increased by 1.6%, and the ferrous charge consumption was
decreased by 24 kg/t. Analysis of the reasons is that the inner jets
with a large flow and a small inclination angle enhance the impact
strength onto the molten pool and shorten the blowing time; the
outer jets with a small flow and a large inclination angle increase the
merge distance and delay the attenuation of velocity, thus forming a
larger impact area and improving the melting slag and dephospho-
rization rate. From the perspective of energy balance, the reason may
Outlet axis distance L Nozzle inclination angle
(mm) α (deg) Mach number at exit
110 14 2.06
120 18 2.06
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TABLE IV. Composition of pretreatment of hot metal.

Composition C Si Mn P S

% 4.40 ± 0.21 0.49 ± 0.087 0.123 ± 0.023 0.069 ± 0.012 0.028 ± 0.016

TABLE V. Comparison of the key metallurgical index. REFERENCES

Metallurgical Double-parameter Normal
index jets jets
Blowing time (s) 14 min 49 s 15 min 40 s
Dephosphorization rate (%) 83.8
Oxygen consumption (N m3 /t)
46.3
Oxygen supply intensity (N m3 /t min) 3.13
Ferrous charges consumption (kg/t) 1090
be that the energy transfer efficiency between the double-parameter
jets and the molten pool is higher than that of the normal jets and
the molten pool.
IV. CONCLUSIONS
(1) The jet inclination angle has more influence on the jet coa-
lescence compared with the gas flow rate. With a larger jet
inclination angle, the individual jets likely show weaker inter-
ference extent with each other. The flow ratio plays a deci-
sive role in the velocity distribution along the jet centerline
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(4) Many metallurgical characteristics were optimized by the
application of the double-parameter jets compared to the
normal jets.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors are grateful for the financial support from the Edu-
cation Department of Liaoning Province (Grant Nos. 2020LNQN12
and 2020LNJC03), the National Key R&D Project of China (Grant
No. 2017YFC0805100), and the Science and Technology Projects of
Liaoning Province (Grant Nos. 2018307003 and 2019ZD0272).
DATA AVAILABILITY
The data that support the findings of this study are available
from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
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