Simulación computacional termo-hidraulica de una línea de decapado

MARINA C. RIFAI; CORZO, SANTIAGO F.; NIGRO, NORBERTO; DAMIAN RAMAJO

Rosario

Congreso; 22 Conferencia del acero (IAS Steel coference); 2018

Instituto Argentino de Siderurgia

Pickling pools are widely used in the steel industry for removing depositions and oxides in several types of materials. Commonly the pickling fluid in the pools is a solution of HCl, which is hold under controlled conditions (temperature and concentration) to ensure efficiency. In this sense, uniform temperature in pool, and a proper fluid mixing are mandatory to avoid high concentration of oxides in the solution. The studied problem was a sheet picking plant, in which a thin thickness sheet is continuously immersed in a large pool. The sheet enters at room temperature and is progressively heated until reach the solution temperature. In order to study it, the computational fluid dynamics was used, and the heat transfer between the fluid and the sheet was solved by means of the conjugated heat transfer method, which solves explicitly the thermal coupling between the fluid and the solid allowing to get the temperature of the sheet along the pool. The present work had the aim to assess the facility design consisting of a large pool splitted in two, in which the sheet takes a catenary shape. The study was focused in to assess the liquid inlet and outlets throttle positions, considering the induced motion in the fluid caused by the sheet velocity and the sheet heating. Results showed that the flow was largely mixed, in part due to the high inlet jet penetration, and also due to the motion induced by the sheet, whereas stagnation zones were not observed. Finally, it was verified that the sheet reached the fluid temperature before leaving the first middle of the pool. A very homogeneous temperature distribution was also found in the fluid.