A methodology for determining the erosion profile of the freeze lining in submerged arc furnace
H Dong, H-J Wang, S-J Chu
This paper presents a heat conduction model to determine the erosion
profile of freeze linings in a ferronickel submerged arc furnace. Kirchhoff
transformation was adopted to simplify the nonlinear equation governing
heat conduction. The boundary element method (BEM) and Nelder-Mead
simplex optimization method were employed to solve an inverse heat
conduction problem. Erosion profiles could be obtained when calculated
temperatures at sensor locations agreed well with measured temperatures.
The model was validated by comparing the heat loss through the linings,
which was calculated by BEM and integral operation after erosion profiles
were obtained, with the value calculated from industrial data such as
actual power consumption, tap-to-tap time, and ferronickel output. The
optimal solution for the erosion profile could be acquired when the
difference in heat losses calculated by these two methods is at a minimum.
Keywords: submerged arc furnace, freeze lining, erosion profile, boundary element
method.